呿吟

qū yín

The yawn and the moan · qu yin

Also rendered: the yawn and the moan (Keeps both graphs and their plain sense) · gaping and groaning (More clinical; loses the smallness the chapter insists on)

Pathology

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin: qū yín
Simplified: 呿吟
Literal: 呿 is the mouth opening — a yawn, or the slack jaw of someone breathing badly — and 吟 is a drawn-out moan or murmur. Set together they are almost nothing: the small involuntary noises a sick person makes. That is exactly the point. Chapter 25 puts them next to 秋毫, the autumn down of a hair, and says that the physician who has mastered the numbers of emptiness and repletion sees them as clearly as a hair held up against the light. The term is the chapter's argument in miniature: diagnosis is the perception of what everyone else can hear and no one else can read.
Shuowen: 《說文解字》：呿，張口也。从口去聲（大徐本作「張口皃」）；吟，呻也。从口今聲。王冰注：「呿，謂欠呿；吟，謂吟嘆。」本篇之目：呿吟至微，秋毫在目；虚實呿吟，敢問其方？

In brief

The faintest clinical signs — the open mouth, the moan — used in chapter 25 as the test of a physician’s perception. The chapter pairs them twice: first as something so small it takes a mastered eye to see at all, then as the thing the Emperor explicitly asks to be taught a method for. The pairing with 秋毫 is what makes the term more than a synonym for groaning: these are signs at the limit of visibility, and the whole argument of the chapter is that the difference between the common workman and the one who goes out and in alone is what each can see at that limit.

Senses in the classical corpus

The two small noises 呿吟

呿為張口欠伸，吟為呻吟嘆息

呿吟至微，秋毫在目 — Suwen 25

At the limit of visibility 至微

微之至，非耳目之常所及

呿吟至微 — Suwen 25

Seen as clearly as a hair 秋毫在目

秋毫謂鳥獸秋生之細毛，喻其至細

秋毫在目 — Suwen 25

What the Emperor asks to be taught 敢問其方

虚實之辨與呿吟之察，問其診法

虚實呿吟，敢問其方？ — Suwen 25

Paired with emptiness and repletion 虚實呿吟

呿吟為虚實之外候

虚實呿吟，敢問其方？ — Suwen 25

The chapter's standard of perception 獨出獨入

能見人所不能見，故獨往獨來

能逹虚實之數者，獨出獨入 — Suwen 25

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·寶命全形論 Suwen 25 · 寶命全形論 Read in context →

呿吟至微，秋毫在目。呿吟至微，秋毫在目。

Qū yín zhì wēi, qiū háo zài mù.

The yawn and the moan are exceedingly faint, yet the autumn down is before the eye.

「呿」讀 qū，張口也；「吟」讀 yín。王冰注以「呿」為欠呿、「吟」為吟嘆，則二者皆病人不自主之微聲。「呿吟至微，秋毫在目」：其聲至微，而能歷天地陰陽之化、存八動之變、逹虚實之數者視之，則如秋毫之在目——不是說聲音變大了，是說看的人變了。下文黃帝遂以「虚實呿吟，敢問其方」為問，歧伯答以五行相勝，正是從可見之微推到不可見之理。「秋毫」之「毫」讀 háo，謂鳥獸秋生之細毛，喻其至細。

Compounds built on this term

呿吟

qū yín

the yawn and the moan

病之至微之外候

秋毫

qiū háo

the autumn down

喻其至細，與呿吟對舉

虚實

xū shí

emptiness and repletion

呿吟所候者是此二者

呻吟

shēn yín

moaning

「吟」之常訓，與「呿」合稱則專指病聲

How it has been translated

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

Wiseman & Feng	gaping and moaning	They render 呿 as gaping, which is accurate to the mouth but clinical to the point of severity.
Unschuld	yawning and moaning	He keeps the everyday register, which is right for a passage about noises anyone can hear.
This site	the yawn and the moan	The chapter's point is that these are ordinary and almost invisible at once, so we keep the ordinary words. We transliterate the headword in the title so the two graphs stay visible, since 呿 is rare enough that most readers will not have met it.

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09

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Reading path

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