Glossary
59 terms, in English and Chinese.
Find a short definition for each term and a link onward where there is a fuller page to read.
- Annual Pillar流年
- The stem and branch of the current year, read against a natal chart. The basis of any annual forecast in this tradition.
- BaZi八字
- Literally "eight characters". The Chinese birth-chart system that writes a birth moment as four pairs of characters. Also called the Four Pillars of Destiny.
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- Ben Ming Nian本命年
- Your own zodiac year, recurring every twelve. Traditionally treated as a year for care and modest commitments, and marked by wearing red, customarily given by someone else.
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- Chinese Zodiac Sign生肖
- The animal of the Earthly Branch in the year pillar. One of eight characters in a full chart, and the only one most people know.
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- Command of the Month得令
- A Day Master born in the season of its own element, or of the element that generates it. The single heaviest factor in the strength judgement.
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- Controlling Cycle相克
- The sequence in which each element restrains another: Wood parts Earth, Earth shapes Water, Water tempers Fire, Fire refines Metal, Metal cuts Wood. Usually mistranslated as "destructive" — the tradition means shaping, not damage.
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- Day Master日主
- The Heavenly Stem of the birth day: the character that stands for the person, and the reference point every other character in the chart is read against. Ten possibilities.
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- Day Master Needing Support身弱
- A chart in which the Day Master has limited support. Read as benefiting from resources and allies. The usual English rendering, "weak", carries a judgement the Chinese term does not.
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- Direct Officer正官
- The character that controls the Day Master, of opposite polarity. Read for structure, position, responsibility and legitimate authority.
- Direct Resource正印
- What generates the Day Master, of opposite polarity. Read for support, learning, shelter and the resources a person receives rather than makes.
- Direct Wealth正财
- The wealth element of opposite polarity to the Day Master. Traditionally read as steady, earned and recurring — the salary rather than the venture.
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- Earthly Branch地支
- One of twelve characters that occupy the lower half of each pillar. The twelve branches are also the twelve zodiac animals, which is how the popular Chinese zodiac connects to the full system.
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- Eating God食神
- What the Day Master produces, of the same polarity. Read for enjoyment, craft, expression and unforced output. The literal translation is awkward in English and the concept is not.
- Favourable Element用神
- The element a chart is read as benefiting from, and the source of every recommendation about colour, direction and material in this tradition. Displayed on many sites as "lucky element".
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- Feng Shui风水
- The separate discipline of arranging space, sharing the five-element vocabulary with BaZi but reading buildings and directions rather than birth data. Related, not the same subject.
- Five Elements五行
- Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water — five modes of energy that generate and control one another. Note that 金 is Metal, not Gold, despite the literal translation.
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- Four Pillars of Destiny四柱
- The same system as BaZi, named for its layout: four columns for year, month, day and hour, each holding one Heavenly Stem above one Earthly Branch.
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- Friend比肩
- A character of the same element and polarity as the Day Master. Read for peers, independence, and support of the kind that comes with an equal claim.
- Generating Cycle相生
- The sequence in which each element produces the next: Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth yields Metal, Metal carries Water, Water grows Wood.
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- Harm六害
- A branch relationship read as low-level friction rather than open conflict. Traditionally taken less seriously than clash, and read differently between schools.
- Heavenly Stem天干
- One of ten characters that occupy the upper half of each pillar. Each carries one of the five elements and a polarity, giving five elements times two polarities.
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- Hurting Officer伤官
- What the Day Master produces, of opposite polarity. Read for originality, performance and a refusal to accept a structure as given. Another literal translation that reads worse than it means.
- Indirect Resource偏印
- What generates the Day Master, of the same polarity. Read for unconventional learning, intuition and knowledge acquired outside the usual channels.
- Indirect Wealth偏财
- The wealth element of the same polarity as the Day Master. Traditionally read as irregular and entrepreneurial — the venture, the side project, the unexpected sum.
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- Late Zi Hour晚子时
- A birth between 11pm and midnight. Schools disagree about whether it belongs to the current day or the next one, and the choice changes the Day Master. A convention, not a fact.
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- Luck Pillars大运
- Ten-year periods that advance through the sexagenary cycle from the month pillar, forward or backward depending on year polarity and sex. The main way BaZi talks about phases of a life.
- Lunar New Year春节
- The first day of the lunar calendar year, falling between late January and late February. It marks the popular start of the zodiac year, but not the BaZi year.
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- Monthly Pillar流月
- The stem and branch of the current solar month, read against a natal chart. The basis of monthly forecasts, and the reason those forecasts update in the first week rather than on the 1st.
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- Na Yin纳音
- An older layer that assigns each of the sixty stem-branch pairs a poetic element name, such as "gold in the sand". Historically important, rarely load-bearing in modern readings.
- Nobleman贵人
- A symbolic star associated with helpful people and timely assistance. In everyday Chinese the same word simply means a benefactor.
- Offending Tai Sui犯太岁
- Standing in an awkward relation to the year branch — being it, opposing it, or meeting it through harm or punishment. The umbrella term behind most annual zodiac advice.
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- Output Star食伤
- Collective name for Eating God and Hurting Officer: everything the Day Master produces. In a supported chart these are the outlets the tradition looks for.
- Pattern格局
- The structural type of a chart, named after whichever of the Ten Gods dominates. A classical framework that organises readings, and one where schools diverge considerably.
- Peach Blossom桃花
- A symbolic star associated with attraction, charm and social visibility. One of the few from that layer that is widely known outside practitioner circles.
- Punishment相刑
- A set of branch combinations read as self-undermining or entangled. One of the more school-dependent parts of the system and rarely decisive on its own.
- Resource Star印星
- Collective name for Direct and Indirect Resource: everything that feeds the Day Master. In a chart needing support, these are what the tradition reads toward.
- Rob Wealth劫财
- A character of the same element but opposite polarity to the Day Master. Read for competition and for shared resources — allies and rivals being the same people in many charts.
- Root通根
- A stem finding its own element among the branches below it, including in hidden stems. A stem with a root is read as far more substantial than one without.
- Seven Killings七杀
- The character that controls the Day Master, of the same polarity. The dramatic name is traditional; the reading is pressure, challenge and the kind of authority that is taken rather than granted.
- Sexagenary Cycle六十甲子
- The cycle of sixty stem-and-branch combinations that names years, months, days and hours in the traditional calendar. Ten stems against twelve branches repeat every sixty steps.
- Six Clash六冲
- The opposition between two branches six positions apart on the twelve-branch circle — Rat and Horse, Ox and Goat, and so on. Read as tension and change rather than as misfortune.
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- Six Harmony六合
- A pairing of two branches read as combining well: Rat with Ox, Tiger with Pig, Rabbit with Dog, Dragon with Rooster, Snake with Monkey, Horse with Goat.
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- Solar Terms节气
- Twenty-four fixed points in the solar year that structure the traditional agricultural calendar. Twelve of them mark the boundaries of BaZi months, which fall around the 4th to the 8th of each Gregorian month.
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- Start of Spring立春
- The solar term around 4 February that begins the BaZi year. Not the same date as the lunar new year, which is why early-February births are so often assigned the wrong animal.
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- Starting Luck起运
- The age at which the first Luck Pillar begins, calculated from the distance between the birth moment and the nearest solar term. It varies from person to person.
- Strong Day Master身强
- A chart in which the Day Master has abundant support from same-element and generating characters. Read as needing outlets rather than more input. Not a compliment or a grade.
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- Symbolic Stars神煞
- A large body of named indicators layered on top of the core system — Peach Blossom, Travelling Horse, Nobleman and many more. Colourful, popular, and treated as secondary by most serious practitioners.
- Tai Sui太岁
- The Grand Duke Jupiter: the ruling authority of the year in Chinese folk cosmology, with sixty named deities for the sixty-year cycle.
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- Ten Gods十神
- The ten possible relationships between the Day Master and any other character, grouped in five pairs by element relationship and polarity. The main interpretive vocabulary of BaZi.
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- Three Harmony三合
- A trine of three branches four positions apart that together form one element — Monkey, Rat and Dragon form Water; Tiger, Horse and Dog form Fire; and so on.
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- Travelling Horse驿马
- A symbolic star associated with movement, relocation and travel. Named for the courier horses of the imperial postal relay.
- True Solar Time真太阳时
- Clock time corrected for the longitude of the birthplace, so that noon means the sun actually overhead. Some schools require it for the hour pillar; it needs a longitude, not just a city name.
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- Twelve Life Stages十二长生
- A twelve-phase cycle from birth to dissolution, used to describe how strongly a stem sits in a given branch. A technical tool rather than a narrative about a life.
- Unfavourable Element忌神
- The element a chart is read as already having in excess, or as working against its balance. The counterpart to the favourable element, and school-dependent in the same way.
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- Wealth Star财星
- Collective name for the two wealth relationships. The wealth element of any chart is the element the Day Master controls — Wood controls Earth, Fire controls Metal, and so on around the cycle.
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- Yin and Yang阴阳
- The two polarities every stem and branch carries. Yang is the outward, active, visible mode; yin the inward, receptive, contained one. Each of the five elements exists in both.
- Zi Wei Dou Shu紫微斗数
- A different Chinese chart system, sometimes called Purple Star Astrology. It places named stars in twelve palaces rather than weighting five elements, and is read alongside BaZi rather than instead of it.
- Zodiac Hour时辰
- A traditional two-hour block. The day is divided into twelve of them rather than twenty-four hours, which is why the hour pillar changes every two hours rather than every one.
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Missing something? The library covers the zodiac signs, five elements and ten Day Masters in depth.