yin and yang
Yin and yang (noun) means In Chinese philosophy, the two complementary forces held to make up everything in the universe: yin, the dark, cool, passive, receptive principle, and yang, the bright, warm, active, assertive one, each containing a trace of the other and constantly turning into it. Example: “Traditional Chinese medicine aims to restore the balance of yin and yang in the body.”
How to Use Yin and yang
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishTwo opposite forces that balance each other and make a whole.
The philosophical sense is neutral; the figurative "they're the yin and yang of the office" sense is everyday English. The symbol is properly called the taijitu.
Fill the Gap
Can you complete this real example?
Traditional Chinese medicine aims to restore the balance of _____ in the body.
Etymology
From Chinese yin, the shaded northern side of a hill, and yang, its sunlit southern side.
Synonyms
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Rhymes for yin and yang
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Which side is yin and which is yang?
Yin is the dark half and yang is the light half. Yin is associated with cold, night, stillness, water and the feminine; yang with heat, day, movement, fire and the masculine. Each half carries a dot of the other colour to show that neither exists in a pure state.
What do the dots in the yin and yang symbol mean?
They show that each force contains the seed of its opposite and will eventually turn into it. Nothing is wholly yin or wholly yang, and the two are always in the process of exchanging.
Is yin and yang about good and evil?
No. Neither force is good or bad; they are complementary rather than opposed in a moral sense. Harm is understood to come from imbalance between them, not from one of them being wicked.