吐
Character Story & Explanation
In daily life, 吐 appears in medical contexts (e.g., 呕吐 'vomiting', a common symptom in TCM diagnosis), emotional expression (吐苦水 'to pour out one’s bitterness'), and modern internet slang (吐糟 'to roast/critique playfully'). The HSK 5 idiom 吐故纳新 (tǔ gù nà xīn, 'spit out the old, take in the new') originates from the Daoist text Zhuangzi and remains widely used in education and corporate training to describe renewal and learning.
Historically, 吐 first appeared in seal script (c. 3rd century BCE) as a compound of 口 (mouth) and 土 (earth/tǔ), likely indicating the act of expelling something downward—consistent with early definitions in the Shuōwén Jiězì (121 CE) dictionary. While not a pictograph, its structure visually anchors expulsion in the mouth’s physicality and gravity’s direction.
The character 吐 (tǔ) embodies a fundamental Chinese philosophical principle: the dynamic balance between internal and external, retention and release. In traditional Chinese medicine and qigong, 'spitting' is not merely physical—it symbolizes expelling stagnation, toxins, or negative energy to restore harmony. This reflects a worldview where health, emotion, and morality are interwoven: what one ‘spits out’—whether phlegm, lies, or resentment—is as vital to well-being as what one takes in.
Its dual pronunciation—tǔ (neutral, active expulsion) and tù (forceful, often pathological)—mirrors Chinese linguistic sensitivity to intention and context. The same action can be routine (吐气, exhaling calmly) or distressing (呕吐, vomiting), revealing how language encodes moral and somatic nuance. Tone and usage signal whether an act is natural, therapeutic, or disruptive—a microcosm of Confucian attention to propriety in every gesture.
Beyond physiology, 吐 extends metaphorically into speech ethics: 吐露 (tǔlù, 'to reveal') implies careful disclosure, while 吐槽 (tùcáo, internet slang) humorously ‘spits’ criticism—transforming bodily function into social commentary. This lexical elasticity shows how classical concepts remain vibrantly alive: the mouth (口) isn’t just an organ but a threshold where inner truth meets outer world, demanding mindfulness at every utterance.
Example Sentences
Common Compounds
Similar Characters — Don't Mix These Up
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