春

• Seasonal: The season of spring; specifically the beginning of the year or the period of cultivation in agricultural and temporal contexts.
• Renewal: Emergence, renewal, or the start of a cycle; often associated with biological or cosmological awakening (particularly when appearing with 生 "life/growth" or 萌 "sprouting").
• Affective/Erotic: A euphemism for sexual arousal, libido, or flirtation (e.g., 春情). In contexts of romance or social impropriety, it may be rendered as "wanton" or "lustful," frequently signaled by proximity to 情 (emotion) or 色 (color/lust).
• Metaphorical: Youth; the "springtime" of life.

• Noun: Functions as a temporal marker or as the subject or object of a sentence.
• Attributive Adjective: When modifying other nouns, it may be literal (e.g., "spring breeze") or qualitative, denoting warmth, softness, or tenderness.

The operative sense is typically determined by the semantic field:

• Agricultural/Calendar → Season, growth, or date.
• Emotional/Interpersonal → Desire, arousal, or "wantonness."
• Biographical → Youth.

Tang-period reading: *chuin.