Additional information about 皓
說文解字:
- Criteria
- BRIGHT
1. The general term for what appears luminous or bright in the broadest sense of these terms is míng 明 (ant. àn 暗 "dark" and yǐn 隱 "dark"), a word heavily laden with religious overtones.
2. Liàng 亮 "bright" (ant. yōu 幽 "dark and shady"), càn 燦 and làn 爛 are primarily optical and rather prosaic terms to use.
3. Zhāo 昭 "resplendent" (ant. míng 冥 "dark"), gěng 耿 "brilliant", hào 皓 "shining bright", yè 燁, and hè 赫 "luminous" is a highly charged ritually high-flown word that belongs to court language, often with metaphorical force.
4. Yáng 陽 "bright" (ant. yīn 陰 "dark") is simply the opposite of dark and does not connote any high degree of luminosity.
5. Lǎng 朗 is an elevated word used to refer to things resplendent and bright.
6. Hào 顥 and qíng 晴 "bright" refers to the brightness of the sky.
7. Yàn 宴／曣 refers specifically to the brightness of the sky.
8. Guāng 光 refers generally to light or even resplendence. See LIGHT
For causative uses see ILLUMINATE.
For figurative uses see ILLUSTRIOUS
- 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.
- BLACK
[[COMMON/RARE]]
[DRAMATIC/UNDRAMATIC]
[ELEVATED/FAMILIAR]
[+FIG/LITERAL]
[GENERAL/SPECIFIC]
[IDIOMATIC/NON-IDIOMATIC]
[POETIC/PROSAIC]
1.The standard word is hēi 黑 (ant. bái 白 "white") which refers to anything very dark.
[GENERAL], [LITERAL], [PROSAIC]; [[COMMON]]
2. Xuán 玄 (ant. sù 素 "pristine unadorned white") refers to a redish mystifying black. SW: 黑而有赤色者
[ELEVATED], [+FIG], [POETIC!]
3. Àn 黯 (ant. hào 昊 "shining bright (of sky)") is rare and poetic, and the word refers to the threatening darkness of clouds in a thunderstorm.
[DRAMATIC], [ELEVATED], [LITERAL], [POETIC]; [[RARE]]
4. Zī 淄／緇 (ant. sù 素 "plain white") refers to the glossy greyish black appearance of dark silk, like the colour of dark earth, and this word seems limited to the description of clothes.
[ELEVATED], [LITERAL], [SPECIFIC]
5. Dài 黛 (ant. hào 皓 "shining whie") refers specifically to the dust-glossy black of make-up.
[ELEVATED], [LITERAL], [POETIC], [SPECIFIC]; [[RARE]]
6. Lí 黎 / 黧 (ant. sù 素 "pristine white and un-suntanned") refers to the dark sunburnt complexion of those who work in the open for long periods.
[IDIOMATIC], [LITERAL], [PROSAIC], [SPECIFIC]
7. Qián 黔 refers to the dark sunburnt complexion of those who work in the open for long periods, especially in qián mín 黔民 "the common people".
[IDIOMATIC], [LITERAL], [PROSAIC], [SPECIFIC]
8. Méi 黴 refers to the facial complexion darkened either by exposure to the sun or by sorrow.
[ELEVATED], [+FIG], [IDIOMATIC], [POETIC!]; [[RARE]]
9. Zào 皂 (sù 素 "plain undyed white") is also very rare and refers to the appearance of coarse dyed black non-silken textiles, the original reference of the word being to the plant used to produce the black effect.
[LITERAL], [PROSAIC]
10. Mò 墨 is basically ink, and by extension the word can come to refer to a dark black colour.
- WHITE
1. The dominant word for whiteness is bái 白 (ant. hēi 黑 "black").
2. Sù 素 (ant. zī 緇 "black") refers to a pristine natural absence of colouring close to what we call off white.
3. Hào 皓 (ant. xuán 玄 and zào 皂 "dark and black") refers to gleaming whiteness.
4. Ái 皚 refers specifically to the white appearance of snow, xī 皙 refers to the whiteness or paleness of skin, cuǒ 瑳 to the white tinge of jade, pó 皤 refers to whiteness of hair.
5. Hào 皜 refers to a pure but unshiny white, as in porcelain.
- Word relations
- Epithet: (WHITE)齒/TOOTH
Chǐ 齒 refers to the visible front teeth, thus when one smiles one shows one's chǐ 齒, xiàn chǐ 見齒, and only if one were vampire-like would one show any yá 牙. Chǐ 齒 does not typically refer to the teeth as weapons of aggressive action. The teeth by which one judges age are always chǐ 齒, and the teeth with which one commonly chews tend quite as often to be chǐ 齒. The front teeth that get cold when the lips are gone, are chǐ 齒 in classical Chinese, and they are not seen in that common saying as aggressive weapons. The admirable white teeth of a lady are the chǐ 齒, only in the case of vampires yá 牙. We have goǔ yá 狗牙 but mǎ chí 馬齒. One grinds one's chǐ 齒, 切齒, not one's yá 牙. The first teeth of a child are never yá 牙 and regularly chǐ 齒, and similarly for the teeth that an old man loses, when chǐ duò 齒墮"the teeth fall out". Interestingly, the elephant has chǐ 齒, never yá 牙, presumably because these tusks were taken to be a threat to his own survival, not to man.