Taxonomy of meanings for 見:　　

Additional information about 見

說文解字: 【見】，視也。从儿、从目。 〔小徐本作「從目、儿。」〕 凡見之屬皆从見。 【古甸切】

Criteria
• SHOW
  

  1. The most general word for making anything visible is shì 示 (ant. hán 含 "keep to oneself").

  2. Xiàn 見 / 現 (ant. bì 蔽 "make invisible to others,") refers to making visible what is there.

  3. Xiǎn 顯 (ant. yǐn 隱 "hide from sight") is to make something prominently visible to wider audience.

  4. Yáng 揚 (ant. yì 抑 "suppress and keep from general knowledge") is to make something universally visible to the general public.

  5. Zhù 著 (ant. bì 蔽 "block from sight") is to show something up as deserving great attention.

  6. Chén 陳 (ant. cáng 藏 "hide") is to lay out something so as to make it accessible to inspection.

  7. Zhāo 昭 (yōu 幽 "keep in obscurity") is to cast light over something so as to make it accessible to wide appreciation.

  8. Zhāng 彰 (ant. yì 抑 is to give proper illustrious public status to something that is held to clearly deserve such recognition.

  9. Zhú 燭 (ant. yǐn 隱 "keep in the dark") is to cast enought light on something dark in order to make it visible.

  10. Pù 暴 is to make accessible to view what is covered and therefore inaccessible to inspection.

• READ
  

  1. The general word for reading out a written text (there was probably no silent reading in pre-Buddhist China) was dú 讀. See Platform Sutra Tanjing 2.8.4 for a nice example. NB: reciting texts for oneself was a way of studying these, so that by Han times the word sometimes came close to meaning "study".

  2. Lǎn 覽, guān 觀, and dǔ 睹 can occasionally refer to the running one's eyes over a text (probably mumbling it in the process, but there is no evidence whatever to substantiate this assumption) and thus reading it.

  3. Jiàn 見 can occasionally refer to the looking at a text to see what it says.

  4. Fēng 諷 refers to the current practise of reading a certain text.

• VISIBLE
  

  1. The current general word for visibility is xiàn 見 / 現 (ant. yǐn 隱 "remain hidden").

  2. Xíng 形 (ant. cáng 藏 "be hidden") refers to taking shape or taking proper shape.

  3. Xiào 效 (ant. huái 懷 "keep hidden within oneself") refers to somethings abstract becoming clearly manifest.

  4. Xiǎn 顯 (ant. yōu 幽 "be in the dark and inaccessible to clear inspection") refers to something becoming prominently visible to all.

  5. Zhāng 彰 (ant. yì 抑 "suppress wide knowledge of") refers to something becoming prominently visible to everyone in all its splendour or importance.

• BELIEVE
  

  [BASIC/MARGINAL]

  [EXPLICIT/IMPLICIT]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  [FALSE/TRUE]

  [FUTURE/PAST/PRESENT]

  [HIGH-DEGREE/LOW-DEGREE]

  [IDIOM/WORD]

  [OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE]

  1. Yǐ wéi 以為 and occasionally also yǐ 以 alone refer to a belief that is typically held to be less than reliable.

  [EXPLICIT], [GENERAL], [SUBJECTIVE], [VERB]

  2. Yǐ 以 alone sometimes refers to a belief that is typically held to be less than reliable, and seems simply short for yǐ wéi 以為.

  3. Wèi 謂 typically refers to a mistaken belief.

  [EXPLICIT], [FALSE!], [SUBJECTIVE], [VERB]

  4. Yì 意 refers to guesswork, anticipation and the like. See GUESS

  [FUTURE]

  5. Xìn 信 is sometimes used to refer to conviction, to someone trusting something to be the case or being confident that something is the case.

  [HIGH-DEGREE], [IMPLICIT], [VERB]

  6. Shì yóu 視猶 "look upon as" is occasionally used to refer to a belief attached to an attitude.

  [IDIOM], [IMPLICIT], [SUBJECTIVE], [VERB]

  7. Mín xīn 民心 is public opinion.

  [IDIOM], [IMPLICIT], [NOUN], [SPECIFIC]

  8. Jiàn 見 "view" is very occasionally used figuratively to refer to an opinion.

  [IMPLICIT], [MARGINAL], [NOUN]; [[RARE]]

• CONCEAL
  

  1. The current general word for hiding anything is yǐn 隱 (ant. xiǎn 顯 "display clearly") which refers to the hiding of anything, physically or intellectually.

  2. Nì 匿 (ant. zhāng 章 / 彰 "make a display of") refers to the physical removal of things so as to make them inaccessible to others.

  3. Cáng 藏 (ant. xiàn 見 ) adds to the notion of hiding that of safe keeping and collecting for use.

  3. Fú 伏 (ant. chū 出 "come into the open") refers prinarily to hiding in a certain terrain.

  4. Cuàn 竄 is incoative and refers to the action of going into hiding.

  5. Yōu 幽 refers primarily to putting or leaving something in the dark and thus by extension to concealing it.

• SEE
  

  1. The clearly dominant word is jiàn 見 (ant. méng 矇 "unable to see") which refers to any act of successful visual perception.

  2. Míng 明 (ant. máng 盲 "unable to see at all") refers to clarity of general vision and is predominantly used in transferred senses.

  3. Dǔ 睹 refers to clear perception at a given time.

  4. Chá 察 refers to discriminating analytic perception.

• PREJUDICE
  

  朱熹 : 灌去舊見, 以來新意.

• SMELL
  

  1. Xiù 臭／嗅 "try to smell" relates to wén 聞 "perceive the smell of" exactly like shì 視 "look at" to jiàn 見 "see".

  NB: Compare 嘗 "try to taste". See TASTE.

• MEET
  

  1. The current general word for meeting someone by coincidence is yù 遇, and going to meet someone is jiàn 見.

  2. Huì 會 refers to an arranged meeting, usually between more than two persons.

  3. Zāo 遭 refers to being exposed to something or running into someone, and the focus is on the fact that the encounter is generally hostile ( 遭宋司馬，將要而殺之 "ran into the Marshal of Sòng and wanted to kill him").

  4. Féng 逢 seems to be a dialect word for encountering something, but in early times this word has a much more limited range of syntactic functions, while from Han times it tended to replace yù 遇 as the standard word for encountering a person, later to be replaced in colloquial Chinese by its cognate pèng 碰.

  5. Chù 觸 is occasionally used to refer to someone bumping into someone else.

• SUFFER
  

  1. The most general word referring to a person's being exposed to something is probably shòu 受 (ant. shī 施 "have an effect on, act upon"), which can take both desirable and non-desirable objects.

  2. Jiàn 見 tends to take verbal complements and tends to refer to a person being exposed to undesirable effects.

  3. Qǔ 取 refers to deliberate exposure to an action or exposure to something by one's own fault.

  4. Beì 被 tends to refer to exposure to undesirable effects from the outside.

  5. Zāo 遭 and yù 遇 refer to unexpected and unprovoked exposure to outside effects.

  6. Měng 蒙 often refers to deliberate exposure to negative outside dangers or effects, but the word also has a generalised use where it simply corresponds to shòu 受.

  7. Lí 罹 and its loan character lí 離 refer to innocently running into some trouble or encountering some sorrow.

  8. Xiàn 陷 "get trapped in" refers occasionally to a disastrous encounter with what turns out inescapable. See TRAP

• VISIT
  

  1. The most current general word for paying a visit is jiàn 見.

  2. Yè 謁 refers to any formal visit, private or official.

  3. Pìn 聘 refers to a formal and official visit on behalf of some political authority.

  4. Wèn 問 refers to a visit to a sick person or to the bereaved.

  5. Cháo 朝 refers to a formal visit or general attendance at court.

  6. Guō 過 refers to informal visit en passant.

  7. Cān 參 refers to a visit to a superior.

• PASSIVE MARKER
  

  1. The most current general marker of the passive is jiàn 見 which means literally "be exposed to, face".

  2. Passives in wéi 為 "be the object of" abstractly indicates that the verb it modifies is neutrally passive.

  3. Passives in bèi 被 "suffer" typically refers to the suffering of something undesirable.

  4. Passives in qǔ 取 "bring upon onesel" typically refers to the suffering of something undesirable by one's own fault.

  5. Passives in zāo 遭 "come upon" and yù 遇 "run into" refer to running into what tend to be undesirable situations one is exposed to.

  <div>6. Passives in shòu 受 "receive" refers to an agent being the recipient of some impact from the outside.</div><div><br></div><div>7. For passives in yú 於 see the entry under SUFFER.<br></div><br>NB: Note that the notion of the passive is notoriously hard to define for a language like classical Chinese. What some grammarians view as passive constructions will be construed by others as periphrastic ways of expressing with various transitive verbs what other other languages express with passive forms.

• LOOK
  

  1. The current word for looking at something close in general is shì 視, but the word can also occasionally refer specifically to looking down rather than up. (See also SEE.)

  2. Wàng 望 (and the much rarer tiào 眺 / 覜 and zhān 瞻 ) refer to looking at something from a distance (often with connotations of admiration), and the connoted direction is always upwards.

  3. Pàn 盼 refers to looking around with the expectation of finding something.

  4. Jiān 監 refers to looking at something so as to ascertain something about it or on the basis of it.

  5. Gù 顧 adds to the notion of looking at something the turning of one's head, or one's attention, from something to what is being looked at. Juàn 眷 is intensitive for gù 顧.

  6. Dǔ 睹 / 者 plus 見 on-right adds to the notion of looking at something the connotation of intense pleasure and typically the hope of establishing personal or erotic contract with the person one looks at by looking at her.

  7. Dì 睇 and lài 睞 are rare words referring to a flirtatious quick glance.

  8. Nì 睨 and miǎn 眄 refers to looking at someone sidewise as a show of demonstrative disrespect.

  9. Yáng 仰 (ant. fǔ 俯 "look down") refers to throwing one's head back and look up. See LOOK UP

• LOOK UP
  

  1. The most current general word for looking up is zhān 瞻, but this word typically connotes respect or admiration. See also ADMIRE

  2. Áng 昂 (ant. fǔ 俯 "look down") refers to holding one's head high and pushing out one's chest so as to face upwards in an imposing gesture of authority.

  3. Yǎng 仰 (ant. fǔ 俯 "look down") refers to throwing one's head back, but it does not specifically focus on the act of looking in that position.

  4. Wàng 望 refers to looking upwards or forward into the distance.

  仰視,　仰見,　仰望,　仰觀,　仰察

• TOOTH
  

  1. 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.

  2. Yá 牙 can occasionally generally refer to teeth, even the exquisite teeth of a woman, but the word typically refers to the large side teeth or fangs of an animal with which it bites, and which are seen as a threat. The threatening teeth of an animal, the teeth with which a rat attacks one's home, are yá 牙. Thus one speaks of the zhuǎ yá 爪牙 "the claws and fangs" as metaphors for weapons. Theses are sharp like fangs, and as such they lend themselves to metaphorical use to indicate dented patterns in ornaments.

Word relations
• Object: (SHOW)善/EXCELLENT Shàn 善 (ant. zhuó 拙 "inept"), when the word does not mean moral goodness, but is close in meaning to liáng 良, refers to an acquired specific skill or propensity for certain forms of action. 1 Attribution
• Contrast: (ENCOUNTER)得/ENCOUNTER
• Contrast: (SEE)聞/KNOW Wén 聞 is to have learnt so that one knows as part of one's tradition or education. 1 Attribution
• Contrast: (SEE)望 / 望/LOOK Wàng 望 (and the much rarer tiào 眺/覜 and zhān 瞻) refer to looking at something from a distance (often with connotations of admiration), and the connoted direction is always upwards.
• Contrast: (SEE)視/LOOK The current word for looking at something close in general is shì 視, but the word can also occasionally refer specifically to looking down rather than up. (See also SEE.) 2 Attributions
• Assoc: (SEE)督/LOOK1 Attribution
• Assoc: (SEE)覽/SEE
• Assoc: (SEE)觀/SURVEY Guān 觀 is to try to get a detailed careful overview of something and to survey something complex with careful analytic attention.
• Synon: (SEE)察/SEE Chá 察 refers to discriminating analytic perception.
• Synon: (SEE)督/LOOK
• Synon: (MEET)睹/MEET2 Attributions
• Synon: (VISIT)睹/VISIT1 Attribution
• Synon: (UNDERSTAND)知/UNDERSTAND 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")