Classica Sinica Medica

氣淫 简体 气淫

qì yín

Qiyin · licentious qi

Also rendered: excess qi (Accurate and flat) · qi flood (淫 as flooding) · wantoning qi (Older dictionaries' word for 淫)

Pathology

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin
qì yín
Simplified
气淫
Literal
氣 qi; 淫 overflowing, overstepping, without measure — and so, in ordinary usage, licentious.
Shuowen
《說文解字》：淫，浸淫隨理也（引申為過甚、無節）。

In brief

The name this chapter gives to excess. Qi that arrives before its season does two things at once: 薄所不勝, it presses on the quarter it cannot overcome, and 乘所勝, it rides over the quarter it can. The choice of 淫 is the point — the fault is not force but order, a qi that has overstepped its bound, and the word says so.

Senses in the classical corpus

1
Qi that comes before its season 未至而至
Arriving when it is not yet due
未至而至，此謂太過 — Suwen 9
2
What it does 薄所不勝，而乘所勝
Presses on what it cannot overcome, rides over what it can
則薄所不勝，而乘所勝也，命曰氣淫 — Suwen 9

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

Display
1 passages
素問·六節藏象論 Suwen 9 · 六節藏象論 Read in context →
未至而至，此謂太過，則薄所不勝，而乘所勝也，命曰氣淫。 未至而至，此谓太过，则薄所不胜，而乘所胜也，命曰气淫。
wèi zhì ér zhì, cǐ wèi tài guò, zé bó suǒ bù shèng, ér chéng suǒ shèng yě, mìng yuē qì yín.
If it comes before its time, that is excess: it presses on what it does not overcome and rides over what it does overcome. This is called licentious qi.
王冰：「淫，謂氣之妄行無度也。」「薄」讀 bó，迫也；「乘」謂乘凌。氣淫與下文氣迫對舉：一為太過而妄行，一為不及而受迫。

Compounds built on this term

薄
bó
to press upon
薄、迫通假；與下文「所不勝薄之」同一字
乘
chéng
to ride over
To take advantage of the quarter one overcomes
所勝
suǒ shèng
what it overcomes
The quarter it governs by conquest

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

Common Englishexcess of qi / qi excessStandard, and says nothing about order.
This sitelicentious qi淫 is a word of conduct used here of a calendar: the qi has overstepped. Excess would be correct but would lose that the fault is one of sequence, which is the whole of what the chapter is arguing.

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09

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Reading path

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