淖液

nào yè

Thin and slippery · nao ye

Also rendered: thin and slippery (Descriptive, and matches the clinical consequence) · moist and free-flowing (Longer, and 'free-flowing' adds a claim about movement the text makes separately)

Physiology

Reviewed · 2026-09

At a glance

Pinyin: nào yè
Simplified: 淖液
Literal: 淖 is mud, the wet softness of a bog — 說文 enters it under water and glosses it as 泥 — and 液 is the thin fluid that seeps out of anything. Put together they do not describe a disease: they describe blood in warm bright weather, when it is loose, moist and easy to move. Chapter 26 sets it against 凝泣, congealed and sluggish, in cold overcast weather, and the whole calendar physiology of the chapter hangs on that single opposition.
Shuowen: 《說文解字》：淖，泥也。从水卓聲；液，𧗁也。从水夜聲。淖之為泥，引申為濡潤滑利之狀。王冰注本篇曰：淖，濕也；液，謂血淖而澤。本篇之目：天温日明，則人血淖液而衛氣浮，故血易冩，氣易行。

In brief

Blood in warm, bright weather: loose, moist, thin. The term is one half of the pair on which chapter 26’s argument rests — the other half is 凝泣, blood congealed and sluggish under a cold overcast sky. Because the blood is thin, the defence qi floats, the blood is easily drained and the qi moves easily; and that is why the chapter says to needle without hesitating in warm weather but not at all in cold. The word is descriptive, not pathological: 淖液 is the state that makes treatment work.

Senses in the classical corpus

Blood in warm weather 人血淖液

天温日明則血濡潤滑利

天温日明，則人血淖液而衛氣浮 — Suwen 26

Why draining works then 故血易冩

血滑則易瀉，氣亦易行

故血易冩，氣易行 — Suwen 26

Its opposite 人血凝泣

天寒日陰則血凝澀不行

天寒日陰，則人血凝泣而衛氣沈 — Suwen 26

The rule that follows 天温無疑

血淖則刺之無疑，與天寒無剌相對

天寒無剌，天温無疑 — Suwen 26

Follows the moon as well 血氣始精

月始生則血氣始精而行，與淖液同為流利之狀

月始生，則血氣始精，衛氣始行 — Suwen 26

A word with two readings 淖

一讀 chuò、zhuō，於此義為遠，本篇從王冰讀 nào

天温日明，則人血淖液 — Suwen 26

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 →

是故天温日明，則人血淖液而衛氣浮，故血易冩，氣易行。天寒日陰，則人血凝泣而衛氣沈。是故天温日明，则人血淖液而卫气浮，故血易写，气易行。天寒日阴，则人血凝泣而卫气沉。

Shì gù tiān wēn rì míng, zé rén xuè nào yè ér wèi qì fú, gù xuè yì xiè, qì yì xíng.Tiān hán rì yīn, zé rén xuè níng sè ér wèi qì chén.

Thus when the sky is warm and the sun bright, a person’s blood is moist and thin and the defence qi floats; hence the blood is easily drained and the qi moves easily. When the sky is cold and the sun overcast, the blood congeals and grows sluggish, and the defence qi sinks.

「淖液」與「凝泣」是本篇全部禁令的生理根據——不是說血在溫時變成了病，而是說血在溫時易行、在寒時難行，用針之宜忌即由此分。**「淖」讀 nào，濡潤滑利之義**，與《說文》「淖，泥也」之訓相承，王冰注「淖，濕也」是；「液」讀 yè。**「泣」讀 sè，通「澀」，非哭泣之泣（qì）**，王冰「如雪在水中凝住而不行」正是澀義。**「沈」讀 chén，即「沉」之本字**，底本不作沉。二句對舉：溫則血淖而衛氣浮，寒則血凝而衛氣沈——浮沈二字是「以𠉀氣之浮沈」一語的來歷（§27）。

Compounds built on this term

淖液

nào yè

thin and slippery

狀血在天温日明時之態

凝泣

níng sè

congealed and sluggish

與淖液對舉，泣讀 sè 通澀

衛氣浮

wèi qì fú

the defence qi floats

血淖則衛氣應之而浮

血易冩

xuè yì xiè

blood easily drained

冩讀 xiè，通瀉；本站「補瀉」條（id 712）可參

How it has been translated

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

Wiseman & Feng	slimy and thin	Wiseman keeps 淖's mud sense with 'slimy', which is faithful to 說文 but reads as a pathology in English.
Unschuld	watery	Unschuld's 'watery' captures the dilution and drops the texture, and it loses the contrast with 凝 that the sentence depends on.
This site	thin and slippery	The point of the word here is that it makes the blood easy to drain; 'slippery' carries that and 'thin' carries the dilution, while neither suggests disease. We keep the pathological reading of 淖 out of it, since the chapter is describing a state in which treatment works best.

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-09

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