愛

ài

love, be fond of, like

Meaning

  • Affection and attachment: including familial bonds, romantic passion, or the reciprocal bond between a ruler and subjects.
  • Preference and fondness: a liking for objects, habits, or styles.
  • Cherishing and preservation: valuing an object highly to protect it from waste or harm (overlaps with 惜).
  • Compassion: reacting to the vulnerability or suffering of another (overlaps with 憐).

Grammar and usage

  • Transitive Verb: Standard usage (Subject + 愛 + Object).
  • Noun: Functions as an abstract noun ("love" or "affection"); this nominalization is more frequent in later philosophical texts than in early narrative or poetic fragments.

Distinctions

  • vs. 仁 (rén): While both involve human connection, 仁 is a cultivated ethical virtue of social benevolence, whereas 愛 is affective and visceral.
  • vs. 欲 (yù): 欲 focuses on the hunger or desire of the subject; 愛 focuses on the perceived value of the object.

History and forms

  • Tang-period reading: *qə̀i (Fanqie: 烏代).
  • Simplified variant: 爱 (U+7231).

Decontextualized translator aid. This page describes plausible lexical range; it does not choose what the glyph means in a particular passage.