Taxonomy of meanings for 再:　　

Additional information about 再

說文解字: 【再】，一舉而二也。从一、冓省。 〔小徐本「冓」上有「從」。〕 【作代切】

Criteria
• AGAIN
  

  [CYCLIC/LINEAR]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  [INCREASING/STATIC]

  [SUBJ=HUMAN/SUBJ=NON-HUMAN]

  1. Fù 復 tends to refer to a cyclic repetition of any any event, action, or process.

  [CYCLIC!], [GENERAL]

  2. Yòu 又 refers to linear repetition, often of an incremental nature, of any event, action, or process (compare LAO 玄之又玄 "even more mysterious than the mysterious".

  [GENERAL], [INCREASING!], [LINEAR]

  3. Zài 再 refers generally to linear repetition of the same action, typically by a human agent.

  [GENERAL], [LINEAR], [SUBJ=HUMAN!]

  4. Gèng 更 in front of transitive verbs typically implies a change of object and thus often retains elements of its original force "improve", and the word often retains the nuance of an intended systematic improvement achieved by the change.

  [SPECIFIC], [SUBJ=HUMAN]

  5. Xí 襲 refers to repetition by way of a continuation of a traditIon. See REPEAT.

  [LINEAR], [SPECIFIC], [SUBJ=HUMAN]

• REPEAT
  

  1. The current word for repetition is fù 復.

  2. Xún 尋 occasionally refers to the reverting to a former state, or to seeking to renew that former state, typically an alliance méng 盟.

  3. Zài 再 is primarily to do something twice, but the word can also refer to an action being performed for a second time.

• BOW DOWN
  

  1. The general word for all kinds of bowing recognised as ritually correct is bài 拜, which involves kneeling on the ground, moving one's head against one's hands joined in the obligatory Confucian manner, and bowing one's torso forward, and this word is often rich in further semantic nuances. It is important to realise that even newly appointed kings bowed in the bài 拜 fashion. By Han times, this kind of bowing often was accompanied by one's pronouncing one's personal name. Standardly, one 再拜 "bowed twice" in ancient China.

  [GENERAL]; [[COMMON+]]

  2. Qǐ 稽 and mostly qǐ shǒu 稽首 refers to the profoundest bow which involves hitting the ground with one's forehead and remaining in that position.

  [ASCENDING++], [ELEVATED], [FORMAL]

  3. Dùn shǒu 頓首 involves knocking the ground and lifting one's head again, thus being not quite as extreme as qǐ shǒu 稽首.

  [ASCENDING+], [ELEVATED], [FORMAL]

  4. Yī 揖 refers to a polite bow with one's hands held against one's chest.

  [HORIZONTAL], [POLITE]

  5. Gǒng 拱 refers to a polite bow where the hands, which are held together in the Confucian (and not the Buddhist) fashion, are removed some distance from the chest and shaken only mildly, or, as in the chuí gǒng 垂拱 variety, in front of one's stomach, typically as a sign of dignified and polite inactivity.

  [ELEVATED], [POLITE]

  6. Fǔ 俯 / 俛 refers to a general deep bowing down from a predominantly physical point of view, without any particular emphasis on the semantics of the bowing, and the action does not involve kneeling or hitting the ground with one's forehead.

  [ELEVATED]; [[CURRENT]]

  7. Yǔ 傴 is to bow deeply so as to reach a position like that of a hunchback, and to remain in that position for a considerable time.

  [ARCHAIC], [FORMAL]; [[RARE]]

  8. Lóu 僂 is to bow slightly so as to reach a position like that of a mildly hunchbacked person, and to remain in that position for a considerable time.

  [ARCHAIC], [FORMAL]; [[RARE]]

  9. Fú 伏 refers to the sustained polite bowing position in which, for example, polite deliberation by superiors had to be seen to proceed in the Han court, and this meaning has to be distinguished from the meaning "to crouch".

  [ASCENDING], [POLITE]

  10. Shì 式 (often written 軾 ) refers to the polite ritual act of stopping one's cart and leaning politely over the railings of that cart to greet someone.

  [ARCHAIC], [ELEVATED], [FORMAL]

• TWO
  

  1. The general word is èr 二, a word which shows an extraordinary semantic and syntactic flexibility.

  2. Liǎng 兩 is common when the reference is to a natural pair, but there are also many cases where the definite reference is merely to an aforementioned couple of items, and there are even a good number of cases where the reference is to any indefinite number of two things. Also the word regularly means "both the objects" when it precedes a transitive verb, and the word is never used as an ordinal number. Moreover, in complex numbers the word is not used.

  3. O ㄆ偶 and ǒu 耦 refers to a man-made or artificial pair or pairing.

  4. Zài 再 is mostly adverbial and refers to an action being performed twice.

  5. Chóng 重 is mostly adnominal and refers to something being two-layered.

  6. Bèi 倍 "double" refers to twice the amount of something.

Word relations
• Contrast: (TWO)一/ONCE1 Attribution
• Synon: (REPEAT)復/REPEAT The current word for repetition is fù 復. 3 Attributions