Taxonomy of meanings for 絕:　　

Additional information about 絕

說文解字:

Criteria
• STOP
  

  1. The standard current word for ceasing in an activity is zhǐ 止 (ant. xíng 行 "carry on with"), and this word can to any concrete or abstract activity; the ceasing may be final or temporary.

  2. Definitive discontinuation, often of inanimate processes, is yǐ 已 (ant. zuò 作 "break into action"). See FINISH.

  3. Bà 罷 is to deliberately discontinue a course of action one is embarked on, particularly a military action.

  4. Ceasing in a human activity, for a while, is xí 息 and the somewhat rarer xiū 休 (all ant. zuò 作 "break into action").

  5. Jué 絕 (ant. jì 繼 "continue") is to disrupt one's current (human) activity, and fèi 廢 (ant. qín 勤 "continue to make a serioues effort") is to discontinue such an acitivity permanently.

  6. Shě 舍 (often negated) is to relent in a certain activity.

  7. Chuò 輟 (ant.* láo 勞 "put in a continued honest effort") is temporary discontinuation of human action.

  8. Zhì 滯 can be used to refer to the involuntary discontinuation in an activity.

  9. Xiē1 歇 refers to the discontinuation of a process (like that of worrying).

• AVOID
  

  [[BASIC/DERIVED]]

  [ABSTRACT/CONCRETE]

  [DELIBERATE/INVOLUNTARY]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  [GRAMMATICALISED/LEXICAL]

  [HIGH-DEGREE/LOW-DEGREE]

  1. The general word is miǎn 免 (ant. zāo 遭 "encounter"), and this refers to any voluntary or involuntary process leading to one's escape from what otherwise might occur, especially one's being spared a negative experience.

  [CONCRETE], [GENERAL]

  2. Bì 避 (ant. mào 冒 "expose oneself to"), unlike miǎn 免, is always deliberate and describes a strategy of action which successfully avoids an undesirable impending danger.

  [DELIBERATE]

  3. Yuàn 遠 (ant. jìn 近 "move close to") is a specific strategy of avoidance which is well within one's control and consists in keeping what is undesirable at a long distance from one.

  [DELIBERATE], [HIGH-DEGREE]

  4. Lí 離 differs from yuàn 遠 in the fact that no great distance, concrete or abstract, is implied in the word.

  [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

  5. Chú 除 refers to the avoidance or removal of something that is perceived as posing a powerful threat. See REMOVE

  [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

  6. Qù 去 (ant. lí 罹 "get exposed to") is avoidance through getting rid of what is threatening.

  [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

  7. Jué 絕 refers to avoidance through getting rid completely and definitively of what is threatening.

  [ABSTRACT], [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE], [HIGH-DEGREE]

  8. Tuì 退 refers to avoidance by withdrawing from what exposes one to what is threatening.

  [DELIBERATE], [SPECIFIC]

  9. Wù 勿 is a negation referring to an instruction to avoid doing something, and the word often has an object pronoun understood. See NOT.

  [GRAMMATICALISED]

• POOR
  

  1. The current general word for poverty is pín 貧 (ant. fù 富 "rich"), but the term does not in general refer to transitory poverty.

  2. Qióng 窮 (ant. fù 富 "rich") refers to an extreme state of destitution, which may, however, be transitory, and the word may also refer not so much to poverty as such as marked lack of expected success, professional failure (ant. dá 達 ); and the word may also refer to persons without regular means of support such as widows and orphans.

  3. Fá 乏 (ant. yù 裕 "abundantly supplied") refers to a shortage in a certain commodity or in a certain specified group of commodities.

  4. Kùn 困 (ant.* kuān 寬 "in comfortable economic circumstances") refers to poverty as constituting serious hardship.

  5. Yuē 約 (ant. chuò 綽 "be abundantly supplied") refers to mild poverty or straightened circumstances.

  6. Jué 絕 refers to temporary poverty viewed as the result of a sudden change of circumstances.

  7. Jié 竭 refers a state of extremely low supply that has come about through a gradual change in circumstances.

  8. Jiǒng 窘 (ant. jǐ 給 "be sufficiently supplied") is a rare word referring to a general state of run-down destitution.

• CROSS OVER
  

  1. The most general current word for crossing over something is guò 過.

  2. Dù 渡 typically refers to crossing water by foot or boat, and the word became exceedingly common from Han times onwards.

  3. Shè 涉 typically refers to crossing water by foot.

  4. Jīng 經 typically refers to crossing or passing through territory.

  5. Lì 歷 refers to passing through territories or time spans. For the latter meaning the character 曆 came to be used in later times.

  6. Yuè 越 and chāo 超 refer to leaping or striding across something. See also LEAP OVER

  7. Kuà 跨 refers to striding across something, see LEAP OVER.

  8. Jué 絕 refers in a somewhat elevated style to crossing a river or a desert by any means of transport.

  9. Fàn 犯 refers to managing to get across something that is hard to cross, but this usage is rare.

  10. Háng 杭／航 is an ancient word for crossing a river by ferry.

• DISTANT
  

  1. The clearly dominant term for distance in general is yuǎn 遠 (ant. jìn 近 "close").

  2. Shū 疏 (ant. qīn 親 "close") often refers to distance of relation in a more than purely physical sense.

  3. Yōu 悠 and jiǒng 迥 is a poetic word describing as distant something which one wishes was near.

  4. Liáo 遼 is a poetic referring to what is distant and remote in space and therefore an obscure place. Note liáo yuǎn 遼遠.

  5. Miǎo 邈 is a rare poetic word, and from the few usages we have it seems more frequently to refer to distance in time.

  6. Yáo 遙 is an elusive poetic word referring to a mystical distance, typically the distance into which one roams freely xiāo yáo 逍遙.

  7. Qù 去 can refer to concrete or abstract distance, and in the abstract case the distance is close in meaning to difference.

  8. Lí 離 in this sense is a purely geometrical terms that can sometimes refer to the distance of some object from another.

  9. Jué 絕 "cut-off, distant" is a fairly elevated way of referring to the remoteness of a region.

  10. Xiá 遐 (ant. ěr 邇 "close"), a distinctly rare and archaic word, describes something as not only distant, but also ethereal, remote and difficult of access.

• BREAK OFF
  

  1. The most general word for breaking anything off is zhé 折 and the word refers to the action of breaking something off as such; the action of breaking is not necessarily attributed to a person or animal: the wind may zhé 折 something off.

  2. Duàn 斷 refers to the resultative aspect of the breaking off, typically also cutting off, and the word tended to be metaphorical in early texts, increasingly taking on its concrete meaning at later stages. See CUT.

  3. Jué 絕 refers - often metaphorically - to causing something to become discontinuous, to be interrupted or broken off.

  4. Cuī 摧 explicitly refers to human actions of breaking off. (If passivised, these verbs always invite the question of who the agent was.)

  5. Cuò 挫 refers specifically to blunting the edge of something by breaking off what is sharp, and the word is in any case marginal in this group.

• COOPERATE
  

  1. The current general word for cooperation is yǔ 與 (ant. jué 絕 "cut off relations with").

  2. Shàn 善 refers to cooperation on the basis of excellent personal relations. (NB: ant. wù 惡 refers more to antipathy than lack of cooperation.) See INTERACT

  3. Jié 結 refers to close cooperative ties leading to lasting coperation.

  4. Fú còu 輻湊 refers to bureaucratic cooperation with the leadership. See HELP

• COMBINE
  

  1. The current general word for combining or linking things, or joining a new unit into an old one is jiān 兼 (ant. fēn 分 "be divided").

  2. Hé 合 (ant. lí 離 "get separated off") is the combining of typically abstract items into a single whole.

  3. Lián 聯 and the Han equivalent lián 連 (all ant. jué 絕 "break relations with") refer to the establishing of links without the creation of a new unity.

  4. Huì 會 refers to the combination of separate units into a whole as in huì yì 會意 "complex characters where semantically significant elements retain their graphic significance".

  5 Bìng 並 refers to the lining things up and joining them together. See ANNEX.

  6. Zhuān 專 is occasionally used to refer to the combining or uniting of things. See CONCENTRATE

• INSIDE
  

  1. The current general word for the inside of three-dimensional objects as opposed to what is outside them is nèi 內 (ant. wài 外 ), but this word is sometimes used to refer quite generally to the insides territories and the like. There are no degrees of neì 內 : things are either inside or outside.

  2. Zhōng 中 (ant. e.g. pàn 畔 "the margins"(!) cf. 江中 versus 江畔 ) typically refers to the centre of a domain and contrasts with the margins or what lies just outside that domain. There are degrees of zhōng 中 : some things may be more central, closer to the core, than others. Note that 中國 does not contrast with 外國 but with ZHOULI 遠國 or occasionally jué guó 絕國. Ancient China did not recognise foreign "states".

  3. Lǐ 裡 (ant. biǎo 表 ) is rare and refers in a rather abstract way to what is inward rather than mereley outward.

  4. Yāng 央 is only occasionally used to refer to the centre and is most current in the ubiquitous combination 中央 "central; the centre".

• JADE
  

  XUN 27:8, Knoblock 3:209

  聘人以珪， Men on official visits use the gu• (which is square at the bottom and round on top),

  問士以璧， freemen asking advice use the b“ (ring-jade);

  召人以瑗， someone summoning other will use the yuàn;

  絕人以玦， someone breaking off relations with someone will use the jué;

  反絕以環。 someone who is making good again broken-off relations will use the huán.

• PERFECT
  

  1. The current general word for ultimate perfection is zhì 至 (ant.* liè 劣 "very inferior").

  2. Jí 極 refers to the attainment of an ultimate point or an ultimate stage.

  3. Jué 絕 focusses on the comparative aspect of excelling all others.

  4. Yōu 優 (ant. liè 劣 "very inferior") focusses on the comparative aspect of excelling most others.

  5. Quán 全 (ant. cán 殘 "seriously deficient") focusses on the complete presence of some conditions of excellence.

• CONTINUE
  

  1. The most current general word for continuing to do something and also for continuing a tradition is jì 繼 (ant. jué 絕 "disrupt a tradition") which concentrates on the original thing that is being continued or made longer.

  2. Xù 續 (ant. duàn 斷 "interrupt a tradition") focusses on what is being added in the lengthening process, and the dominant meaning of the word is spatial lengthening.

  3. Zhuǎn 轉 is refers to continuation by alternation of the agent and is translatable as "continuing in turn".

  4. Chéng 承 refers to the continuation of an abstract tradition.

  5. Yè 業 refers primarily to the continuation of the trade or tradition of one's own forebears.

  6. Réng 仍 focusses on the uninterrupted and continuous pursuance of an activity over a continuing period.

  7. Sì 嗣, which came to mean "succeed as an heir", was used in early texts to refer to the continuation of any tradition or practice.

  8. Yán 延 is current in the meaning "continue" in OBI.

Word relations
• Ant: (DESTROY)屬/SUMMON
• Ant: (BREAK OFF)繼/CONTINUE The most current general word for continuing to do something and also for continuing a tradition is jì 繼 (ant. jué 絕 "disrupt a tradition") which concentrates on the original thing that is being continued or made longer.
• Ant: (STOP)繼/CONTINUE The most current general word for continuing to do something and also for continuing a tradition is jì 繼 (ant. jué 絕 "disrupt a tradition") which concentrates on the original thing that is being continued or made longer. 1 Attribution
• Object: (STOP)祀/SACRIFICE Jì4 祀 is an archaic word which refers to the making of sacrificial offerings of wine and food to the spirits of Heaven, of Earth and to the ancestors, perhaps primarily and originally to the spirits of Heaven. 1 Attribution
• Contrast: (DISCARD)捐/DISCARD1 Attribution
• Assoc: (POOR)乏/POOR Fá 乏 (ant. yù 裕 "abundantly supplied") refers to a shortage in a certain commodity or in a certain specified group of commodities. 2 Attributions
• Assoc: (DESTROY)滅/DESTROY Miè 滅 refers to the physical destruction of cities or states, and the word implies the use of external military force, and typically military resistance.
• Assoc: (DISTANT)邈/DISTANT Miǎo 邈 is a rare poetic word, and from the few usages we have it seems more frequently to refer to distance in time. 1 Attribution
• Synon: (DISCARD)去/DISCARD Qù 去 refers to the distancing oneself from something by rejecting it. 1 Attribution
• Synon: (DISCARD)棄/DISCARD The standard general words for discarding something is qì 棄 (ant. qǔ 取 "choose to retain") and the somewhat rarer juān 捐.
• Synon: (DESTROY)破/DESTROY Pò 破 is always violent destruction of concrete objects of any kind. 1 Attribution