cū lǐ
Also rendered: Coarse grain (keeps the image of texture) · Open grain (plainer, and it explains the consequence) · Loose texture (clinical, and it names the feel)
Reviewed · 2026-10-25
At a glance
The diagnostic sign the chapter returns to three times, and the one that carries its whole argument from wood to man. Coarse grain means the interstices are open and the flesh is not firm, and from that follow three susceptibilities in order: wind, obstruction, and — through the same openness — the lodging of evil that becomes accumulation. The word is the exact opposite of 小理, fine grain, which marks the small and well-guarded viscus; the next chapter uses the same pair to read the size of the viscera from the skin, since coarse means large and fine means small. In this chapter the comparison is with timber: a wood of loose grain drinks the rain and splits, a wood of close grain turns the axe. 麤 is the base text’s graph for 粗 and is kept as printed.
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 | coarse grain | the text's own word |
| Literal | coarse veins | exact, and it sounds like stone |
| Clinical | a loose, open texture of the flesh | clear, and it is a description |
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