Taxonomy of meanings for 闇:　　

Additional information about 闇

說文解字: 【闇】，閉門也。从門、音聲。 【烏紺切】

Criteria
• 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.

• SECRET
  

  1. The current general word for something being kept secret from the general public, but it remaining accessible to an inner circle, is mì 密 (ant. míng 明 "openly, for everyone to see").

  2. Yǐn 隱 (ant. xiǎn 顯 "manifestly, demonstratively") refers primarily to hiding something or being hidden from everyone except the person who is hiding it.

  3. Yīn 陰 (ant. míng 明 "openly, for everyone to see") refers to covert actions hidden from a certain person group.

  4. Tōu 偷 (ant. zhèng 正 "regularly and openly") refers to unreglemented inappropriate secrecy.

  5. Sī 私 (ant. gōng 公 "openly") focusses on the aspect of discreetness in secrecy.

  6. Jiàn 間 (ant. zhèng 正 "straightforwardly") refers to the secretiveness of secret agents in espionage and the like.

  7. Wēi 微 (ant. zhí 直 "straightforwardly") typically refers to secrecy achieved through indirectness or subtlety in the form of communication.

  8. Àn 暗 / 闇 (ant. míng 明 "openly, for everyone to see") gains its nuance from the original meaning of darkness and focusses on the shadiness of secretive action.

• 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.

• INTELLIGENT
  

  1. The most general word for the native ability to understand or to do things is zhī 知 "knowing", but a problem with this word is that it ranges freely and often imperceptibly in meaning from spiritual wisdom to technical competence.

  2. 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.

  3. Cōng 聰 (ant. kuì 聵 "hard of understanding"), taking its analogy from sharpness of hearing, typically refers to well-informed sharpness of judgment.

  4. Shān 顫 is a very rare word referring to the acute sense of smell, and thus to narine intelligence.

  5. Chá 察 refers to discriminating investigative intelligence.

  6. Ruì 睿 perspicacious in reflection.

  SHU, HONGFAN: 視曰明，聽曰聰，思曰睿。

Word relations
• Ant: (STUPID)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. 3 Attributions
• Ant: (STUPID)惑/CONFUSED The standard general word for any kind of confusion is huò 惑 (ant. qīng 清 "be unconfused and clear"). 1 Attribution
• Ant: (DARK)陽/BRIGHT Yáng 陽 "bright" (ant. yīn 陰 "dark") is simply the opposite of dark and does not connote any high degree of luminosity. 1 Attribution