nǚ zǐ bāo
Also rendered: the woman's womb (Literal, and the usual rendering) · the uterus (Anatomical; loses 女子 and the sense of enclosure) · the female bao (Leaves the word untranslated)
Reviewed · 2026-09
At a glance
The last of the six extraordinary constant palaces, and the one whose case is hardest, because it plainly takes things in and puts things out and yet is not a palace of transmission. Wang Bing’s answer: what it takes in is essential qi, what it gives out is a formed body — and giving out a formed body is not the same act as passing dregs along. So it stores, in the sense this chapter cares about.
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.
| Common English | the uterus | Standard in modern writing, where the term is read purely anatomically. |
| This site | the woman's womb | Kept 女子 rather than collapsing it to uterus. The text does not name an organ here but a role — the enclosure a child is formed in — and 胞 carries that role in its own shape. |
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