shào huǒ
Also rendered: The lesser fire (this site; 少 is rendered as lesser rather than little, so that the word reads as the younger and milder of the two fires) · Shao huo (transliteration; used when the pair 壯火／少火 is cited whole)
Reviewed · 2026-10-11
At a glance
The mild fire the body keeps and lives on — the counterpart of the strong fire, and the one the chapter credits with generating the qi: 少火生氣. Suwen 5 gives it three clauses set against the three of the strong fire — its qi is at its full, it gives the qi birth, and the qi feeds it. The reading of 少 is shào, as in 少陽 and 少陰: not ‘little fire’ by quantity but the younger, milder fire, which is why the same paragraph can say the qi eats the lesser fire without contradiction. Wang Bing takes it as the source of the generating qi, and that is the sense later medicine kept when it opposed the physiological fire to the pathological one.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | Lesser fire · shao huo | keeps the pair with the strong fire, and takes 少 in its 少陽 sense |
| Literal | little fire | the obvious rendering, but it reads as scant fire and loses the reading shào |
| Explanatory | the fire that generates the qi | what the chapter says it does; right about the function, silent about the word |
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