Taxonomy of meanings for 昧:　　

Additional information about 昧

說文解字:

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.

• 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.

• STUPID
  

  1. The dominant word is yú 愚 (ant. zhì 智 "clever; wise"), and the word refers to moral as well as intellectual obtuseness as well as practical ineptitude.

  2. Zhuó 拙 (ant. jié 捷 "nimble") refers to practical ineptitude.

  3. Chī 癡 (ant. yǐ4ng 穎 "very clever") refers to moronic clinical intellectual ineptitude.

  4. Lǔ 魯 and dùn 鈍 (ant. huì 慧 "clever") refer to boorish and rustic bluntness of sensibility.

  5. Bì 蔽 and měng 蒙 (all ant. cōng 聰 "clever"), refer to an appearance of stupidity due to limited access to information, a state of stupidity that is typically construed as remediable.

  6. Mèi 昧 and àn 暗 (ant. míng 明 "clear-minded") refer primarily to benightedness of mind and lack of an enlightened attitude, particularly on the part of a ruler or a person who should know better.

  7. Wán 頑 and lòu 陋 (both ant.* bó 博 "broadly civilised") add the nuance of stubbornness to that of stupidity as such.

  NB: Bèn 笨, āi 呆, shǎ3 傻, and chūn 蠢 are post-Han words for stupidity and silliness.

• KILL
  

  1. The overwhelmingly dominant term referring to any form of taking the life of anything is shā 殺.

  2. Some words specify the range of objects murdered: Thus shì 弒 refers to the killing of a reigning ruler, zhū 誅 and yí 夷 refer to the killing of a convicted criminal; zǎi 宰 and tú3 屠 refer primarily to the slaughtering of animals for the purpose of food production.

  3. Some words specify the number of objects killed: yí 夷, zú 族, jiān 殲 tú 屠 (when applied to humans) refer to the killing of groups of people. See PUNISHMENT. The other words refer normally to the killing of one person or a specified set of several persons.

  4. Some words specify modes of killing: cì 刺 is to murder by stabbing with a pointed object, typically a dagger; liè 裂 and jiě 解 refer to dismembering by a wide variety of methods; zhèn 鴆 refers to poisoning; jǐng 剄 refers to cutting the throat; xī 腊 refers to killing followed by making a person into minced meat; rèn 刃 is to kill with a sword; jiǎo 絞 and yì 縊 refer to strangulation, è4 mèi 扼昧 and refer to strangulation; è 餓 can refer to starving someone to death. For a more detailed account of the varieties of death penalties in ancient China see PUNISHMENT.

• 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.

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. 2 Attributions
• Ant: (DARK)皦/BRIGHT2 Attributions
• Object: (RISK)死/DIE The dominant general word is sǐ 死 (ant. shēng 生"be alive"), and this can refer to the death of plants as well as animals or men. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DARK)幽/DARK 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. 1 Attribution
• Assoc: (DARK)暗 / 闇/DARK 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. 1 Attribution
• Synon: (DARK)暗 / 闇/DARK 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.