間甚简体间甚

jiàn shèn

Abatement and aggravation · jian shen

Also rendered: abatement and aggravation (The clinical pair, keeps jian its technical sense) · remission and exacerbation (Correct modern idiom, but hospital-flavoured) · easing and worsening (Plainer, loses nothing) · jian shen (Bare transliteration)

Pathology

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin: jiàn shèn
Simplified: 间甚
Literal: 間 is the older 閒 — moonlight showing through a door, 《說文》隙也, a gap — and by extension the gap in an illness when it leaves off. 甚 began as pleasure: 《說文》 glosses it 尤安樂也, from 甘; excess and severity came later. So the pair is a gap and a surplus.
Shuowen: 《說文解字》：閒，隙也。从門月（月光入門，故為隙也；間為後起字，本篇作間）；甚，尤安樂也。从甘从匹（段玉裁注：引申為凡殊尤、太過之義）。

In brief

The pair names what a doctor most wants to predict: not the illness but its rhythm. In chapter 22 the times of abatement and aggravation are settled by which phase the viscus meets — whether the day brings what it engenders, what overcomes it, what engenders it, or its own seat. But the chapter closes that passage with a condition that must not be skipped: none of these times can be spoken of until the pulses of the five viscera have been fixed. The calendar is useless without the wrist.

Senses in the classical corpus

The thing to be predicted 間甚之時

病之減與加，各有其時

而定五藏之氣，間甚之時，死生之期也 — Suwen 22

Only after the pulses 必先定五藏之脉

脉不定則時不可言

必先定五藏之脉，乃可言間甚之時，死生之期也 — Suwen 22

Slight versus severe 間者、甚者

間為病之輕減，甚為病之加重

肝病者，平旦慧，下晡甚，夜半靜 — Suwen 22

The crossing of symptoms 間藏、間證

後世以「間」指隔一臟相傳者

七傳者死，間藏者生 — 難經之例

Occurrences in the classics

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

Display

2 passages

素問·藏氣法時論 Suwen 22 · 藏氣法時論 Read in context →

黄帝問曰：合人形以法四時五行而治，何如而從？何如而逆？得失之意，願聞其事。歧伯對曰：五行者，金木水火土也，更貴更賤，以知死生，以決成敗，而定五藏之氣，間甚之時，死生之期也。黄帝问曰：合人形以法四时五行而治，何如而从？何如而逆？得失之意，愿闻其事。歧伯对曰：五行者，金木水火土也，更贵更贱，以知死生，以决成败，而定五藏之气，间甚之时，死生之期也。

Huáng dì wèn yuē: hé rén xíng yǐ fǎ sì shí wǔ xíng ér zhì, hé rú ér cóng? hé rú ér nì? dé shī zhī yì, yuàn wén qí shì.Qí bó duì yuē: wǔ xíng zhě, jīn mù shuǐ huǒ tǔ yě, gēng guì gēng jiàn, yǐ zhī sǐ shēng, yǐ jué chéng bài, ér dìng wǔ zàng zhī qì, jiàn shèn zhī shí, sǐ shēng zhī qī yě.

The Emperor asks: Bring a person’s bodily form together with the four seasons and the five phases and take them as the pattern for treatment. What is it to follow, and what is it to go against? I wish to hear how the matter is gained and lost. Qibo replies: The five phases are metal, wood, water, fire and earth. They are by turns noble and by turns base. By them one knows death and life and decides success and failure, and by them one fixes the qi of the five viscera, the times of abatement and aggravation, and the term of death and life.

本篇以「間甚之時」與「死生之期」並提，而中間即答以五行「更貴更賤」之理——間甚者，不是病的性質而是病的時刻，故下文五臟各有「愈、甚、持、起」之期。「間」讀 jiàn 不讀 jiān，取其間歇、減退之義，與本篇「肩甲間痛」之讀 jiān 者異字同形。又本篇末復申之：「必先定五藏之脉，乃可言間甚之時」——舍脈而言時，為本篇所深戒。

素問·標本病傳論 Suwen 65 · 標本病傳論 Read in context →

謹察間甚，以意調之，閒者并行，甚者獨行。先小大不利而後生病者，治其本。谨察间甚，以意调之，间者并行，甚者独行。先小大不利而后生病者，治其本。

Jǐn chá jiàn shèn, yǐ yì tiáo zhī, jiàn zhě bìng xíng, shèn zhě dú xíng. Xiān xiǎo dà bù lì ér hòu shēng bìng zhě, zhì qí běn.

Examine carefully the lightness and the severity, and regulate it by judgement: in the light cases the two proceed side by side, in the severe ones a single course is taken alone. When blockage of the lesser and the greater comes first and illness arises afterwards, treat the root.

「謹察間甚，以意調之，閒者并行，甚者獨行」——**「間甚」讀 jiàn shèn：間者病之輕，甚者病之重，張介賓云「間者言病之淺」**；**本篇「間」1見、「閒」2見，二字異寫而同讀，各从底本**；**「閒者并行」謂病輕者標本可兼治，「甚者獨行」謂病重者專一而治**；**「謹」讀 jǐn、「察」讀 chá、「調」讀 tiáo、「甚」讀 shèn、「獨」讀 dú**

Compounds built on this term

間

jiàn

abatement, a gap in illness

說文作「閒」：隙也

甚

shèn

severity, aggravation

說文：尤安樂也；引申為太過

間甚之時

jiàn shèn zhī shí

the time of easing and worsening

本篇三次言之

持

chí

holding on

間而不愈、甚而不死之狀態，見本篇「持於冬」諸語

起

qǐ

rising again

間甚之外，病復有起色之時

How it has been translated

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

Wiseman & Feng	(jàn and shèn rendered variously)	They generally give 間 as 'intermittent' in its own right and handle 甚 as 'serious' or 'severe'.
Unschuld	the times when a disease is mild or severe	He spells both halves out rather than compressing them, since the two opposites are rarely joined in English.
This site	abatement and aggravation	'Remission and exacerbation' would put a modern ward into a text that is measuring the day; these are also the words for what a family watches at the bedside, which is who this chapter is for.

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2026-09

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