Additional information about 歿
說文解字:
- Criteria
- LIVE
1. The current standard word for being alive is shēng 生 (ant. sǐ 死 "be dead").
2. Cún 存 (ant. wáng 亡 ) and zài 在 (ant. mò 沒 / 歿 "go under") refer to continuing in the state of being alive, but the word also refers to continued existence in general.
3. Huó 活 (ant. sǐ 死 ) specifically refers to the state of being alive when one might have been dead, and strongly connotes not only a failure to die but also the continued existence of life energy.
4. Mìng 命 refers specifically to one's life-span and not to the content of one's life that might be described in a biography.
5. Shēn 身 comes to refer to the life one conducts as in xíng shēn 行身 "conduct one's life" (Greek bios), and, and to one's lifespan as in zhōng shēn 終身 "all one's life".
6. Shòu 壽 (yāo 夭 "short life ended by an unnaturally early death") refers specifically to a lifespan as long as it naturally can be and should be.
- DIE
1. 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.
2. Bēng 崩 refers to the death of an emperor.
3. Hōng 薨 and cú 殂 / 徂 refers to the death of a senior official.
4. Zú 卒 is specifically the death of a common citizen, but occasionally also used to refer to the death of senior persons like dukes.
5. Piǎo 殍 and jǐn 殣 "(of common people) starve to death, die in the gutters" refer distinctly to the death of ordinary people.
6. Mò 沒 / 歿 (ant. cún 存 "survive") and zhōng 終 are abstract elevated, polite words to use about the death of a significant person.
7. Yì 殪 "get killed" is the result of violent action.
8. Yāo (old: yǎo) 夭, yǎo 殀 and shāng 殤 (ant. shòu 壽 "long-lived") refer to an early and not just untimely death.
9. Jí22 shì 即世 refers to the death of high-ranking personalities in the bureaucracy.
10. Wáng 亡 "cease to be" is a polite and periphrastic way of referring to death.
11. Xùn 殉 refers to the act of laying down one's life, dying for a cause.
NB: The periphrastic vocabulary of Chinese referring to death is extraordinarily large. I have more than 900 terms - if modern locutions gēbēr sǐ 咯嘣兒死 "die" are included.