tỳ vị
Definition
- Noun (Traditional Chinese Medicine / Sino-Vietnamese Medical Terminology):
- Spleen and Stomach: Refers collectively to the spleen and stomach organs. In traditional medicine, this term denotes the digestive system's core organs, responsible for transforming food and drink into nutrients and energy for the body.
Usage Examples
- Noun:
- Thuốc này kiện tỳ vị. (This medicine strengthens the spleen and stomach.)
- Ăn uống thất thường hại tỳ vị. (Irregular eating harms the spleen and stomach.)
- Ông ấy bị tỳ vị hư nhược. (He suffers from spleen-stomach deficiency.)
Advanced Usage
- This term is almost exclusively used in the context of traditional Eastern medicine (Đông y) and classical philosophical texts. It is a fixed, compound term and is not used in modern conversational Vietnamese to refer to the organs individually.
Variants and Related Words
- Kiện tỳ (v): to fortify the spleen (a common term in herbal medicine).
- Bài thuốc có tác dụng kiện tỳ. (The herbal formula has spleen-fortifying effects.)
- Vị quản (n): the stomach (a more general, though still formal, term).
Synonyms
- Hệ tiêu hóa: the digestive system (modern medical term).
- Dạ dày và lá lách: stomach and spleen (descriptive, non-technical phrase).
Related Idioms / Classical Concepts
- Tỳ vị hư hàn: spleen-stomach deficiency cold (a TCM diagnosis for poor digestion with cold symptoms).
- Tỳ chủ vận hóa, vị chủ thu nạp: The spleen governs transformation, the stomach governs reception (a classical TCM principle describing their functions).