Vocabulary · 词汇 cíhuì

身体

shēntǐ

The word for body doubles as the word for health, asking about it is a greeting, and its second character got luckier in simplification than any other.

~6 min read

字源 zìyuán Etymology & Structure

有孕之形 yǒu yùn zhī xíng · The Figure with Child

身 (shēn) is a pictograph of a human torso in profile, and the oracle-bone and bronze forms show the belly conspicuously swollen: the early graph most plausibly depicts a pregnant figure, and "pregnancy" is among the character's earliest attested senses (the classical euphemism 有身, "to have body," meant to be expecting). From the belly outward the character generalized to the trunk, the whole body, and then the self who lives in it, which is why 身 runs through identity vocabulary as much as anatomy.

体 (tǐ) is the luckiest simplification in the script. The traditional form 體 stacks the bone radical 骨 against 豊, a ritual vessel doing phonetic work: the body as the assembly of bones. The simplified form 体 was not invented by the 1956 reformers; it existed for centuries as a popular variant, and it happens to compose 人 (person) with 本 (root, origin): the body as a person's root. A character that lost its etymology in simplification and accidentally gained a better one. 体 extends beyond flesh into form generally: 字体 is a typeface, 体系 a system, 整体 the whole, and 体验 is to experience something with, literally, the body.

问候 wènhòu Health as Greeting

身体好吗 shēntǐ hǎo ma · How Is the Body?

身体 means health in exactly the contexts where care is being expressed. 你身体好吗? ("is your body well?") is the proper solicitous greeting for an elder, and 注意身体 ("mind your body") is the standard sign-off to anyone working too hard, the parental or managerial benediction that ends phone calls and group-chat messages across China. Toasts to grandparents run on 祝您身体健康 ("wishing you bodily health"), which shares the New Year top-three with wishes for prosperity and success. The logic embedded in the usage: health is not an abstraction; it is the state of the body, asked after directly.

The verbs of maintenance follow. 锻炼身体 (duànliàn shēntǐ, "to temper the body," the same 锻 as forging metal) covers all exercise, from the park's dawn tai chi to the gym, and 健身 (jiànshēn, "strengthen the body") is the modern gym-going word, with 健身房 the gym itself. The retiree's regimen and the office worker's New Year resolution use the same vocabulary, and both answer to the proverb-grade slogan 身体是革命的本钱: the body is the capital of the revolution, a Mao-era phrase now deployed, without irony, to justify naps.

身体部位 shēntǐ bùwèi The Body-Parts Starter Set

从头到脚 cóng tóu dào jiǎo · Head to Foot 头 tóu → head ; 脸 liǎn → face (the one 面子 borrows)
眼睛 yǎnjing / 耳朵 ěrduo → eyes / ears ; 鼻子 bízi → nose ; 嘴 zuǐ → mouth
手 shǒu / 脚 jiǎo → hand / foot : the pair inside 手机 (hand machine) and 脚步 (footsteps)
肚子 dùzi → belly : the site of 肚子疼 and 拉肚子
心 xīn → heart : anatomical and, overwhelmingly, moral and emotional
The flesh radical 月 (a compressed 肉) marks most body characters: 脸、肚、脚、腿、胳膊

月字旁 yuè zì páng · The Flesh Radical

Most body-part characters carry a squashed moon on their left side, and it is not the moon: it is 肉 (ròu, flesh) compressed into radical form, coincidentally identical to 月. 脸 (face), 腿 (leg), 胳膊 (arm), 脑 (brain), 肝 (liver), 肺 (lungs) all wear it, so a reader meeting an unknown flesh-radical character in a hospital corridor can bet safely on anatomy. The exceptions are the oldest characters, which predate the radical system's tidiness: 手, 口, 目, 耳, and 心 are pictographs in their own right, drawn whole because they were drawn first.

词汇 cíhuì Key Compounds

健康 jiànkāng health; healthy

N/Adj 名词/形容词

健 (robust) + 康 (well, at ease). The formal health word: 健康码 was the pandemic-era health code, 健康证 the food-worker's health certificate, and 亚健康 ("sub-health") the popular term for run-down-but-not-sick, a category Chinese wellness culture takes seriously.

祝爷爷奶奶身体健康！

Zhù yéye nǎinai shēntǐ jiànkāng!

Wishing grandpa and grandma good health!

身份 shēnfèn identity; status

N 名词 míngcí

身 (self) + 份 (share, allotment): one's allotted position. 身份证 (shēnfènzhèng) is the national ID card, the document requested at every train station, hotel, and SIM-card counter, which makes this compound survival vocabulary rather than abstraction.

买高铁票要带身份证。

Mǎi gāotiě piào yào dài shēnfènzhèng.

You need your ID card to buy high-speed rail tickets.

健身 jiànshēn to work out; fitness

V 动词 dòngcí

健 (strengthen) + 身 (body). The gym era's verb: 健身房 is the gym, 健身教练 the personal trainer. The park's older exercise culture keeps its own verb, 锻炼, so the generations can be told apart by which word they use.

他每天下班以后去健身。

Tā měitiān xiàbān yǐhòu qù jiànshēn.

He goes to the gym every day after work.

身材 shēncái figure, build, physique

N 名词 míngcí

身 (body) + 材 (timber, material): the body as raw material. 身材好 is a compliment on someone's figure; 保持身材 is keeping in shape. Its sibling 身高 (shēngāo) is height, the statistic every basketball conversation begins with.

她跳了十年舞，身材保持得很好。

Tā tiào le shí nián wǔ, shēncái bǎochí de hěn hǎo.

She has danced for ten years and kept in excellent shape.

成语 chéngyǔ Idioms & Set Phrases

身体力行 shēn tǐ lì xíng to practice with one's own body and strength; to live what one preaches 身 and 体 here are both verbs in the classical grammar: to embody personally (身) and to enact (体力行, carry out with strength). The Confucian ideal of the teacher whose conduct is the curriculum. Modern usage praises leaders who do rather than direct: 环保不能只喊口号，要身体力行。Environmentalism cannot be slogans alone; one must live it.

感同身受 gǎn tóng shēn shòu to feel it as if one's own body received it; deep empathy Originally a formula of thanks on another's behalf (I feel your kindness to them as if I received it myself); modern usage has shifted it to empathy generally, feeling someone's pain as one's own. The drift is recent enough that dictionaries note both senses, an example of a chengyu migrating in real time.

以身作则 yǐ shēn zuò zé to make one's own person the rule; to lead by example 以 (take) + 身 (one's self) + 作则 (make the standard). The management-and-parenting chengyu: the person who wants punctual employees arrives first. Pairs naturally with 身体力行; one sets the standard, the other lives it out.

明哲保身 míng zhé bǎo shēn the wise protect themselves; prudent self-preservation From the Book of Odes, where it praised wise self-conduct. Two millennia of court politics turned it ambivalent: today it usually criticizes the colleague who sees the problem and says nothing, keeping their own 身 safe. A compliment in the Zhou dynasty, a workplace accusation now.