wěi yì
Also rendered: Flaccid and slack (this site; it keeps 易 as the giving way, which is how the later commentaries describe the sign) · Wei yi (transliteration; how the pair appears wherever the chapter's transmissions and combinations are listed out)
Reviewed · 2026-10-11
At a glance
What the third yang and the third yin produce together: 三陽三陰發病，爲偏枯痿易，四支不舉. The third yang is the greater yang and the third yin the greater yin — exterior and interior, the two that answer each other — and when they fall ill together the body is left with 偏枯 and 痿易, and in the end the four limbs cannot be raised. The two names in the pair are not the same: 偏枯 says that one side has withered, 痿易 says that the flesh has gone limp and slack. 易 is the harder half of the word, and the commentators divide on it — 王冰 reads it as change, the later writers as the giving way of slackness. Both readings agree that the flesh is no longer doing anything.
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 | flaccidity and laxity | 痿 is the limpness of the flesh and 易 its slackening; both halves are wanted, because the chapter pairs the word with 偏枯 and the two do different work |
| Transliteration | wei yi | how the phrase is written in lists of this chapter's combinations; right about the referent, and it hides the dispute over 易 |
| Descriptive | flaccid paralysis with laxity | exact about what is seen, and paralysis is a modern category the chapter does not use |
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