yang
noun
Simple meaning
The bright positive masculine principle in Chinese dualistic cosmology.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
yangIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈjæŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
philosophy
The bright positive masculine principle in Chinese dualistic cosmology
“Yin and yang together produce everything that comes into existence.”
philosophy
A principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with bright, hot, masculine, etc. elements of the natural world.
The cry of the wild goose; a honk.
The monetary unit of Korea from 1892 to 1902, divided into 100 pun.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The bright positive masculine principle in Chinese dualistic cosmology
Used this way, yang is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing and ethics or values contexts.
“Yin and yang together produce everything that comes into existence.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Ethics/values
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use yang
- “Yin and yang together produce everything that comes into existence.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
United States physicist (born in China) who collaborated with Tsung Dao Lee in disproving the principle of conservation of parity (born in 1922).
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.