Taxonomy of meanings for 幸:　　

Additional information about 幸

說文解字:

Criteria
• LUCK
  

  1. The dominant general word for good fortune is fú 福 (ant. huò 禍 "misfortune"), and the dominant general word for good luck is xìng 幸 (ant. yāng 殃 "misfortune").

  2. Lù 祿 and the rare xiū 休 / 庥 are elevated and archaising words referring to blessings from Heaven.

  3. Zuò 祚 is a very elevated and archaising word referring to blessings from Heaven as given to states or great clans and the like.

  4. Yù 裕 (ant. fá 乏 "shortage sent down by Heaven") is an elevated word referring to abundant blessings from Heaven.

• FAVOURITE
  

  1. The current general word for enjoying favourite status is xìng 幸 (ant.* qì 棄 "be rejected as favourite; rejected"); and the standard general word for showing favour to a favourite is chǒng 寵.

  2. Bì 嬖 refers to a male or female favourite of the political or sexual kind - or of both kinds.

  3. Jìn 近 (ant. shū 疏 "without close relations of favouritism") refers rather abstractly to the closeness of association between protector and favourite.

  4. E! 阿 and qū 曲 refer to closeness because of sycophancy. See FLATTER

• LOVE
  

  1. The clearly dominant word referring to love is ài 愛 (ant. hèn 恨 "dislike"; rarely zēng 憎 "dislike"; and wù 惡 "hate"), and this word refers both to the feelings of love and to the expression of love in loving care for another person as well as in sexual relations. (Occasionally, the word may refer to the emotional preference that a small child feels for its parents. For this meaning see PREFER.)

  2. Cí 慈 (ant. xiōng 凶 "vicious") refers to loving care, prototypically by mothers for minors or their offspring. When the word refers to ordinary love, it always connotes a high degree of intensity of the caring emotion.

  3. Tì 悌 refers to love between brothers, particularly the love one owes one's eldest brother, and the word is rarely extended to mean brotherly as opposed to erotic or commiserating love.

  4. Xiào 孝 refers to loving respect for one's parents and ancestors in attitude and action, and is a major traditional virtue.

  5. Chǒng 寵 refers to enjoying the attentions and/or affections of a superior.

  6. Xìng 幸 "give sexual favours to (a subject)" and xìng yú 幸於 "enjoy the sexual favours of (a ruler) refer to love sexually expressed.

  7. Bì 嬖 refers to the enjoying of favourite status with a superior, and the term often connotes sexual relations, occasionally even of the homosexual kind.

  8. Mù 慕 prototypically refers to loving devotion of a distant kind, but the word is also used in a more generalised way to refer to affection.

  9. Hào 好 refers to love as a matter of a strong and habitual emotional preference for something. (See PREFER)

• HOPE
  

  1. The general word for a hope (rather than a wish) yuàn 願 (ant. kǒng 恐 "be very much afraid that"), but the word is rather formal and often tends to express a hope regarding what someone else (typically of higher status) might do. 2. Yù 欲 (ant. kǒng 恐？ “be terrified by the thought of", is very commonly used as a general word for an emotionally intense hope that is currently entertained. (The cases where the word clearly invites translation as "hope" and cannot be rendered as "desire" or "wish" are in the hundreds.) 3. Jì 冀 (ant. jù 懼 "fear") typically refers to an unrealistic or distant precarious hope concerning one's own future or other person's future actions. 4. Wàng 望 "look forward to" refers to a hope regarding realistic external events, and not necessary actions by any person, and the word tends to refer to a more realistic concrete hope and expectation than the equally current yuàn 願.

  5. Qī 期 is a definitive realistic hope, often related to one's own future actions.

  6. Xìng 幸 "hope to be so lucky to find that" (ant. wèi 畏 "fear") is part of polite court speech and refers to a high hope presented as not strongly realistic.

  NB: Pàn 盼 is post-Han.

• HAPPY
  

  1. Fú 福 (ant. huò 禍 "misfortune") is the most common noun for material good fortune and well-being.

  2. Lè 樂 refers specifically to happiness as a rewarding inward state.

  3. Huān 歡 / 驩 / 懽 refers to a sometimes transitory form of sociable and communicative happiness.

  4. Xǐ 喜 typically refers to happiness as a response to something.

  5. Yú 愉 / 媮 refers to happy contentment with things as they are.

  6. Kuài 快 refers to a transient, acute state of happiness.

  7. Yú 娛 (ant yo1u 憂 "worry") typically refers to indulgent happiness with thing as they are.

  8. Yì 懌 is an ancient poetic word referring to dignified contentment, and the word became current in the negative 不懌 "be displeased".

  9. Yí 怡 is a fairly rare elevated poetic word referring to the state of being pleased, contented, and thus happy.

  10. Ān 安 can refer to happy peace of mind.

  11. Yuè 悅 can come to refer to a happy state of contentment with what happens to one or around one.

  12. Xìng 幸 "luck" can refer to to a serendipitously found state of happiness.

  13. Qìng 慶 is an archaic way of referring to material as well as psychological well-being.

  14. Kāng 康 is an archaic way of referring to material and physical well-being.

• AUSPICIOUS
  

  [ACTION/EVENT]

  [ARCHAIC/CURRENT]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  1. The general term is jí 吉 (ant. xiōng 凶 "inauspicious") and refers to any natural phenomenon or supposed supernatural response that is of good omen, in an everyday almost secular way.

  [GENERAL]

  2. Xiáng 祥 tends to refer to the auspiciousness of human actions, but in its nominal usages it came to be used more generally for all tings that bode well or ill.

  [ACTION!]

  3. The archaising and elevated, mostly nominal, ruì 瑞 has specific religious connotations with rituals and the Will of Heaven.

  [ARCHAIC]

  NB: Xìng 幸 (ant. bù xìng 不幸 "unfortunate") is purely "secular", and often coincidental, good luck with no metaphysical or religious significance being attached to the term. See LUCKY

• COPULATE
  

  1. The current general word for copulation applying to both humans and animals, are jiāo 交, hé 合, and these are all rather discrete abstract terms to use.

  2. Yù 御 refers to a male "riding" a female, and the word has no negative overtones.

  3. Tōng 通 and sī 私 are neutral historian's terms for improper sexual intercourse.

  4. Xì 戲 refers to a man making a sexual pass at a woman (occasionally actually one's own wife!).

  5. Yín 淫 and huì 穢 are derogatory terms for engaging in lewd sexual activities with someone.

  6. Xìng 幸 refers periphrastically and politely in historical texts to enjoying the sexual favours, typically of an emperor. See also FAVOUR

  7. Zhēng 烝 refers to the ritual establishment of political relations with a widowed woman of one's senior generation through publicised spending of a night with her.

  8. Bào 報 refers to establishing extramarital sexual relations with a woman of a (normally) lower but sometimes also of a higher generation, but not normally of the same generation.

  9. Gǔ 蠱 refers to a male using irregular means to obtain the sexual favours of a woman he is not married to.

  NB: gòu 構／媾 was late to become current as a term for sexual union.

Word relations
• Contrast: (COPULATE)愛/COPULATE1 Attribution
• Synon: (FAVOURITE)親/INTIMATE The general word for close familiarity is qīn 親 (ant. shū 疏 "have only distant relations with"), but the word often retains connotations of kinship relations. 1 Attribution