迎

Core sense: Active movement toward someone or something arriving; specifically, moving from one's own position toward an approaching object in anticipation of their arrival.

• Physical/Social: Receiving guests, meeting envoys, or greeting a returning person at a city gate or threshold.
• Ritual/Cosmological: Welcoming deities (迎神) or seasonal transitions (e.g., 迎春 "welcoming the spring"), implying an intentional alignment with a coming force or period.
• Poetic/Metaphorical: A state of openness or readiness to receive natural phenomena, such as wind or moonlight.

Primarily a transitive verb taking the person or thing being welcomed as its object. In rare poetic instances, it may describe a state of facing toward something, though the sense of motion usually remains implicit.

Contrast with 接: While often paired in compounds (迎接), these terms denote different stages of an encounter. 迎 emphasizes the outward motion and anticipation (the approach), whereas 接 refers to the act of making contact or receiving the party once they have arrived.

Tang-period reading: *ngiæng. Fanqie readings: 語京, 魚敬.