萌牙简体萌芽

méng yá

The sprout · meng ya

Also rendered: the sprout (Keeps the botanical image and the smallness) · the bud (Slightly later in the growth than 萌 suggests)

Core vocabulary

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin: méng yá
Simplified: 萌芽
Literal: 萌 is a shoot breaking ground — 說文 glosses it 艸芽, a plant's bud — and 牙 is a tooth, but在这里 stands for 芽, the sprout itself: the base text writes the borrowed graph and the chapter's meaning is the uncapitalised one. 上工救其萌牙 says the good physician rescues the disease while it is still a shoot, and the image is doing real work: a sprout can be pulled, a tree cannot.
Shuowen: 《說文解字》：萌，艸芽也。从艸明聲；牙，牡齒也。象上下相錯之形。牙之為芽，古書通假；底本本篇作「萌牙」，通行本多作「萌芽」，各從底本而注明其通假。本篇之目：上工救其萌牙，必先見三部九𠉀之氣。

In brief

What the superior physician rescues: the disease while it is still a shoot. Chapter 26 attaches three conditions to it — the physician must first see the qi of the three regions and nine indicators, must rescue while the qi can still be fully regulated, and must act before anything has been ruined. The image explains the chapter’s whole theory of diagnosis: since the sprout has no form and cannot be seen or tasted, the only way to catch it is to read the indicators rather than wait for signs.

Senses in the classical corpus

What the superior physician rescues 上工救其萌牙

救於未形，如拔初生之芽

上工救其萌牙，必先見三部九𠉀之氣 — Suwen 26

What must be seen to catch it 必先見三部九𠉀之氣

芽未形，故必候其氣而知之

必先見三部九𠉀之氣，盡調不敗而救之 — Suwen 26

Its opposite in time 救其已成

已成則非芽，下工之所救

下工救其已成，救其已敗 — Suwen 26

Why it cannot be seen 視之無形，嘗之無味

未形之物，視之無形、嘗之無味

視之無形，嘗之無味，故謂冥冥，若神髣髴 — Suwen 26

The physician who sees it first 工常先見之

先見其機於未形之時

工常先見之，然而不形於外 — Suwen 26

Same idea, other wording 治未病

本篇之上工與第四篇之聖人，其揆一也

聖人不治已病，治未病 — Suwen 4

Occurrences in the classics

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

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1 passages

素問·八正神明論 Suwen 26 · 八正神明論 Read in context →

上工救其萌牙，必先見三部九𠉀之氣，盡調不敗而救之，故曰上工。下工救其已成，救其已敗，救其已成者，言不知三部九𠉀之相失，因病而敗之也。上工救其萌芽，必先见三部九候之气，尽调不败而救之，故曰上工。下工救其已成，救其已败，救其已成者，言不知三部九候之相失，因病而败之也。

Shàng gōng jiù qí méng yá, bì xiān jiàn sān bù jiǔ hòu zhī qì, jìn tiáo bù bài ér jiù zhī, gù yuē shàng gōng.Xià gōng jiù qí yǐ chéng, jiù qí yǐ bài, jiù qí yǐ chéng zhě, yán bù zhī sān bù jiǔ hòu zhī xiāng shī, yīn bìng ér bài zhī yě.

The superior physician rescues it at the sprout: he must first see the qi of the three regions and nine indicators, and rescue it while it can still be fully regulated and has not yet been ruined. Hence he is called the superior physician. The inferior physician rescues what is already formed and rescues what is already ruined; and to rescue what is already formed means not knowing how the three regions and nine indicators lose their correspondence, and so letting the disease ruin the patient.

「萌牙」是本篇論醫工高下的樞紐之詞。**「萌」讀 méng；「牙」讀 yá，通「芽」**——底本作牙不作芽，與第二十二篇「冩」「寫」二形並見同例，各從底本而注明其通假。上工之救，在芽而不在木；下工之救，在已成已敗之木。所以能救其芽者，是因為先見了三部九候之氣——芽未形於外，故不能以目視、不能以指按，只能於脉之相失中先見之。這與上文「視之無形，嘗之無味」（§30）正是同一件事：冥冥者非不可知，只是不能用尋常的耳目去知。「工常先見之，然而不形於外，故俱不能見也」——先見之「先」讀 xiān，是時間上的先，不是地位上的先。

Compounds built on this term

萌牙

méng yá

the sprout

底本作牙，通芽；上工所救

萌芽

méng yá

the sprout

通行本字形，與底本「萌牙」同詞

上工

shàng gōng

the superior physician

本站本篇另立目，救萌牙者

三部九候

sān bù jiǔ hòu

the three sectors and nine probes

本站已立目（id 659），見萌牙之所據

How it has been translated

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

Wiseman & Feng	the sprouts	Wiseman uses the plural and keeps the plant image, treating 萌牙 as a state rather than a thing.
Unschuld	the beginnings	Unschuld abstracts the image away; accurate, but it loses the reason the metaphor was chosen — a sprout is still removable.
This site	the sprout	The chapter's point is that the same disease is pullable at one stage and not at another, and only the plant image carries that. We keep 牙's borrowing to 芽 in the note rather than in the headword, since the base text writes 牙.

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09

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