牝 (pìn): female (of birds, animals or pl…

Meanings

1 female (of birds, animals or plants)
2 the female principle; receptive / yin
3 keyhole / valley

Characters

牝

pìn

female animal

Examples

HSK 7-9

牝鸡司晨，惟家之索。

Pìn jī sī chén, wéi jiā zhī suǒ.

When the hen announces the dawn, the household will fall (a saying from the Book of Documents).

HSK 7-9

古书把雌雄写作牝牡。

Gǔshū bǎ cíxióng xiězuò pìnmǔ.

In classical texts 'female and male (animals)' is written 牝牡.

Tips

history

The phrase 牝鸡司晨 ('a hen heralds the dawn') comes from the Book of Documents (《尚书·牧誓》) - a warning against women meddling in politics, classically aimed at King Zhou of Shang's consort. It became standard rhetoric against any female ruler, fairly or not.

register

Strictly classical/literary. Modern Chinese uses 母 (mǔ) for female animals - 母鸡 mǔjī 'hen', 母牛 mǔniú 'cow'. 牝 only survives in fixed phrases.

Components

radical

牛 niú

ox; cattle (left-side compressed form)

Left ox radical in side-compressed form. Indexes 牝 in the cattle-and-livestock family (牡 male animal, 牲 sacrificial animal, 牢 pen). Originally 牝 specifically named a female cow or mare, then generalised classically to the female of any species - and to the receptive yin principle in Daoist philosophy.

semantic

匕 bǐ

spoon; here graphic for female anatomy

Right 匕 - typically a spoon or short knife. In 牝 it serves as a graphic representation of female genitalia, paired with the matching shape in 牡 (male) which depicts male organs. A pictographic pair that is now half-obscured by graph simplification, but very direct in the oracle-bone originals.