Taxonomy of meanings for 昏:　　

Additional information about 昏

說文解字:

Criteria
• CLEAR
  

  1. The most general standard and clearly dominant word for things that are easily accessible to the intellect and to the senses is míng 明 (ant. hūn 昏 "unclear").

  2. Zhāng 彰 (ant. yǐn 隱 "obscure") is an elevated word for something being clear to the intellectual eye.

  3. Zhāo zhāo 昭昭 refers emphatically to perfect transparency and clarity.

  4. Chéng 澄 (ant. hún 混 "opaque") prototypically refers to the unruffled, clear state of water or the like. See PURE

  5. Primarily physical transparency is qīng 清 and the very rare chè 澈 (all ant. zhuó 濁 "muddled and unclear"). See PURE

• MARRY
  

  1. The general term for marriage as such is the relatively rare word hūn 婚 and the even rarer hūn yīn 婚 / 昏姻 which refer to marriage in general and not to marriage as seen from the perspective of one of the parties.

  2. The general term for a man marrying a woman is qǔ 娶 (ant. chū 出 "divorce").

  3. The general term for a woman marrying a man is jià 嫁 (No antonym, since women could not seek divorce.).

  4. Guī 歸 refers to a woman leaving her own clan and moving into ther husband's household.

  5. Qì 妻 refers to the convention of giving away a woman in marriage to a man.

  6. Shì 室 refers to the act of establishing a household through taking a wife.

  7. Shì 適 refers to a woman finding a husband (no doubt as a result of a parental decision, but this is not what is focussed on here).

  8. Gòu 媾 refers to double intermarriage between two clans such that a son or daughter of family X marries into family Y, and in addition another marriage is conducted so that another son or daughter from X marries another son or daughter of family Y.

• CONFUSED
  

  1. The standard general word for any kind of confusion is huò 惑 (ant. qīng 清 "be unconfused and clear").

  2. Mí 迷 "be temporarily disorientated" (ant. shí 識 "be familiar with") is in connection with a direction one is intending to take.

  3. Hūn 昏 / 惛 is typically confusion within a certain delimited area. See OBSCURE

  4. Bèi 悖 / 誖 / 勃 refers to confusion in the form of contradictoriness and incoherence of opinions held or of attitudes.

• UNDERSTAND
  

  1. The standard current and word for understanding something and knowing how to do something is zhī 知 (ant. mèi 昧 "not have the foggiest idea").

  2. Míng 明 (ant. měng 蒙 "have very confused notions about") refers to incisive clarity of insight.

  3. Tōng 通 (ant. hūn 昏 "be confused about") refers to comprehensive and thorough familiarity with a subject.

  4. Yù 喻 / 諭 (ant. àn 闇 "be in the dark about") typically refers to clarity achieved on the basis of an effort of articulation.

  5. Chá 察 and shěn 審 (ant. mí 迷 "be all lost when it comes to") refer to incisive clarity of understanding coupled with great awareness of the details of a matter.

  6. Jīng 精 (mào 眊 / 耄 "be completely stupid with respect to") refers to a subtle and thorough understanding of something.

  7. Shí 識 refers to familiarity with something concrete, but the word also refers to simple awareness, especially when negated.

  8. Biàn 辨 / 辯 (ant. huò 惑 "be al confused about") refers to discriminating and highly articulate specialised, often professional knowledge about something.

  9. Jué 覺 and the rarer wù 悟 are inchoative and refer to the coming to understand something.

  10. Wēn 溫 refers to the resulting close familiarity after long acquaintance with a subject.

  11. Wén 聞 (ant. wèi zhī wén 未之聞 "have never heard/learnt about any such thing") is sometimes used as a resultative verb meaning "come to understand something because one has been informed of it". But this usage is limited to the idiom wén dào 聞道 "hear about the Way".

  12. Xī 悉 and jìn 盡 refer to presumed completeness in knowledge.

• DARK
  

  1. The most current general word for physical shadowiness and obscurity is probably yōu 幽 (ant. míng 明 "bright"), but this word often has lyrical overtones of secluded peace.

  2. Míng 冥 (ant. guāng 光 "light"), hūn 昏 (ant. zhāo 昭 "bright") and the rarer mèi 昧 (ant. xiǎn 顯 "clear and manifest") refer freely to purely optical darkness and abstract obscurity.

  3. Xuán 玄 "very dark reddish-black" (ant. bái 白 "plain white") currently refers to mysterious obscurity of the abstract kind. See MYSTERIOUS

  4. Huì 晦 (ant. zhāng 彰 "plain and manifest") refers to obscurity, expecially of texts or of thoughts.

  5. Měng 蒙 (ant. yào 耀 "bright and clearly visible") refers to psychological dimness, obfuscation of mind.

  6. Yǐn 隱 focuses on the inaccessibility to discursive reasoning of what is mysterious.

  7. Àn 暗 / 闇 (ant. míng 明 "bright") can refer to darkness but most of the time this word actually refers abstractly to the benightedness of a ruler.

  8. Yīn 陰 "shadowy, shaded" (ant.* liàng 亮 "bright") describes the lack of light as contrasted with surrounding light.

  9. Ài 曖 is pervasive darkness as a general state, where mèi 昧 is darker than ài 曖.

  10. Hēi 黑 (ant.* hào 皓 "shiny and bright") is darkness imposed by the intrinsic darkness of pigment on an object. See BLACK.

  11. Yǎo 杳 is used in poetry as a general word referring to darkness.

  12. Wū 烏 (ant. hào 皓 "shining white") is quite rare and refers to a high degree of darkness that is without lustre not quite pitch dark.

• MOSQUITO
  

  1. Common general term refering to mosquitos is wén 蚊.

  2. Ruì 蚋 refers to a gnat.

  3. Mí 蠓 refers to midges.

  4. Hūn chóng 昏虫 "dusk insects" is another term for mosquitos.

• MORNING
  

  1. The current general word for the morning is zhāo 朝 (ant. xì 夕 "evening") 。

  2. Sù 夙 (ant. yè 夜 "night") refers generically to the early morning and is almost still a part of the night, yè 夜, since it is a time where the moon is still out. It never refers specifically to the morning of a given day.

  3. Mèi shuǎng 昧爽 (ant. huáng hūn 黃昏 "dusk, or the time just after dusk") refers specifically to the time of dawn or just before dawn.

  4. Píng míng 平明 refers exactly to the point of daybreak.

  5. Chén 晨 (hūn 昏 "dusk") refers to the period after sunrise but before the late morning, and occasionally the word does also include the time just before sunrise.

  6. Dàn 旦 (ant. xì 夕 "in the evening") refers to the morning right until sunrise, when it is already quite bright and the moon is no longer visible, thus reaching somewhat more into the day than sù 夙 and zǎo 早.

  7. Xiǎo 曉 (ant. xiāo 宵 "evening") is exceedingly rare in pre-Buddhist texts and refers to the part of the morning where the sun is already shining.

  8. Míng 明 (ant. míng 冥 "darkness, the dark" mù 暮 "dusk") refers to the early morning in OBI.

  9. Zǎo 早 (ant. wǎn 晚 "late") is often used to refer in a somewhat diffuse way to the very early morning as the time preceding ordinary activities.

  DK: See Tunnan 42 for an important inscription on times of day. CH: SHIJI 55, beginning, has a nice sequence on timewords referring to parts of the day.

• AFTERNOON
  

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  1. The general term for the afternoon, already attested in OBI, is zè 昃.

  [GENERAL]

  2. Bū 晡 refers to the time of the afternoon meal bū 餔, and is a rare word that is first current in HANSHU.

  [SPECIFIC]

  3. Hūn 昏 refers to the time when dusk has set in properly, but before it is dark, i.e. "dusk".

  [SPECIFIC]

Word relations
• Ant: (AFTERNOON)旦/MORNING2 Attributions
• Ant: (CONFUSED)明/INTELLIGENT Míng 明 (ant. àn 闇 "obfuscated in one's mind"), taking its analogy from sharpness of vision, typically refers to clarity of insight at all levels. 1 Attribution
• Ant: (AFTERNOON)晨/MORNING1 Attribution
• Assoc: (STUPID)幽/STUPID1 Attribution
• Assoc: (CONFUSED)亂/CONFUSED Luàn 亂 refers to a chaotic state of mind. 1 Attribution