Pop Culture dictionary
yin-yang
or yinyang or yin and yang [yin-yang]
What does yin-yang mean?
There’s light and dark, day and night, good and evil, yin and yang.
Yin-yang听refers to a concept originating in ancient Chinese philosophy where opposite forces are seen as interconnected and counterbalancing.
It is commonly represented by the yin-yang symbol, a circle made up of black and white swirls, each containing a spot of the other.听
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Where does yin-yang come from?
The concepts of yin and yang have been around since at least the 1300s BCE, when they were found referenced in inscriptions related to Chinese divination of the weather.听One of the first mentions of听yin-yang听for the concept听of cosmic harmony comes from a verse in the Shih Ching, a 6th-century BCE collection of poems compiled by Confucius.
Sometime between roughly 700鈥�400 BCE, Yin-yang was the name of a school of teaching, with chief thinker: alchemist named Zou Yan. The school focused around the idea that all life revolved around five basic elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth), governed by the forces of yin and yang, part of the听qi, or vital life force, of the cosmos.
Yin, Chinese for “female” or “moon,”听represents darkness, femininity, passivity, and the earth. Yang听(“sun” or “male”) represents light, masculinity, activity, and the heavens. (Do we detect some sexism, Zou Yan?) The balance of yin and yang were seen to influence health and order within an individual, society, and the entire universe.
And. their interrelationship came to be depicted in the taijitu, or “Diagram of the Great Ultimate”鈥攂etter known by Westerns as the yin-yang symbol, first appearing in the 1000s CE and attributed to the philosopher听Zhou Dunyi.听In听the symbol, yin is represented by the color black and yang, white.听
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The term听yin-yang is first found in English in the 1850s, and it spread in the 20th century especially thanks to interest in Eastern philosophy, non-Western medicine, and martial arts.
Unicode 1.0 approved the yin-yang symbol for computers in 1993 and added it to its Emoji 1.0 set in 2015. Like other religious and astrological emoji such the om symbol, the yin-yang emoji appears as white on a purple square听鈽�.
Examples of yin-yang
Who uses yin-yang?
In contemporary English, yin-yang听(or yin and yang) is casually used to describe any two opposites seen to balance each other out or to characterize life’s ups and downs.
Always takes a toll on me talking to my uncle especially when he goes “Sometimes I feel like you’re my only friend” because honestly he is mine too. We are ying and yang standing two different generations
鈥� CHIN (@Kay07ming)
Everything in life is a yin-yang. Even people. Believe that.
鈥� JEAN 鈿� WATTS (@jeanwatts_)
Westerners may use yin-yang听in discussing concepts of balance and harmony in their practice鈥攐r the hippy-ish, New-Age-y, and yoga-mom听appropriation of鈥擡astern philosophical or medicinal traditions such as Tai Chi, feng shui, or acupuncture.
They may also simply use it as a shorthand for the symbol taijitu听itself, from tattoos to cocktails to cat pictures.
It’s important to remember, though, that the听yin-yang is an important and very meaningful concept in Chinese philosophy, medicine, and religion.听
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of yin-yang like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of yin-yang that will help our users expand their word mastery.