Every stage of a person's life is very important and monumental, so the ancients gave different titles to each age group according to the characteristics they showed. These appellations are more visual and poetic representations of the characteristics of people at that age. Regarding age, we are familiar with the common sayings such as "thirty years old, forty years old," seventy years old, and so on. Here I will share with you what kind of age in ancient times called what kind of name, many of which are also divided into male and female.
0-1 years old: red, swaddling clothes
Infants under the age of one.
Ruddy - a newborn baby.
Swaddling clothes - wrapping the baby in a small pediatric quilt.
2-3 years old: hanti
The term refers to a young child who has just begun to laugh; it is also written as "hanti bao" or "hanti zhi" (提孩).
3-8 years old: tufts of hair
Tufts of hair are the short hair that hangs down from a child's head in ancient times.
Pan Yue (潘岳)《藉田赋》："Brown color and train, tufts of hair on the head."
Girls are 7 years old and boys are 8 years old: they start to replace their milk teeth
Shuowen (说文)："Men replace their milk teeth in the eighth month at the age of eight; women replace their milk teeth in the seventh month at the age of seven."
"Teething" refers to the shedding of the child's milk teeth and the growth of permanent teeth. According to the physiological condition, boys at the age of 8, girls at the age of 7 teeth, thus called. "It is also a synonym for childhood.
Also: girls are called tweens when they are 7 years old.
8-14 years old: total horn
Total is a bundle of hair, and horn is a bun, which means to put it in a knot. In ancient times, children would divide their hair into two halves and tie them into a knot at the top of their head, which resembled two ram's horns, hence the name "chokaku" (总角). Also used "total horn" to refer to the childhood stage.
Below 10 years old: Yellow Mouth
Yellow Mouth is the beak of a fledgling bird.
10 years old: the year of the infant school, the year of the foreign master
The year of the golden hairpin: a girl is 12 years old.
Girls at 13: Cardamom?
Originally from the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's poem "Farewell": "gracefully curling up more than thirteen, cardamom tips at the beginning of February." It is a metaphor for a thirteen year old girl with a budding cardamom flower at the beginning of February.
Men at 13: The Dancing Spoon
Anciently, 13-year-old boys studied a kind of literary dance.
Women 15 years old: and maturity (jī) Rituals: "A woman has five years of maturity in her tenth year." The term "maturity" originally referred to the hairpin used to bind hair in ancient times. In ancient times, women usually coiled up their hair at the age of 15 and held it with a hairpin to indicate that they had reached adulthood.
Men 15 years old: hair binding, when a man reaches the age of fifteen, he has to dissolve the original total angle and tie it into a bundle. 《大戴禮记-保傅》："Bundle your hair and attend the university, learn the great arts and fulfill the great rules." At this time one should learn various arts.
Men 15-20 years old: Dancing Elephant
Dancing Elephant, originally the name of an ancient martial arts dance, is also synonymous with becoming a child. In the Book of Rites, the Inner Rules: "To become a child, one dances the elephant and learns to shoot and defend."
Women at 16 years old: Erba, Jasper, and the year of the breaking of the melon
In the olden days, the literati used the character "melon" to mark the year of Erba, which means the age of sixteen.
Sun Chuo of the Jin Dynasty wrote "Jasper's Song": "When Jasper broke the melon, the man was upside down for the love of ......", writing out the freshness and beauty of a young girl at the age of twenty-eight.
Broken melon is not the meaning of a woman's broken body, still, as mentioned above, the word melon broken into two.
Men 20 years old: Crown, weak crown
Anciently, men 20 years old, the ceremony of the crown, said that has become an adult, but the body is still not yet strong, so it is also known as the "weak crown". In the past, men and women called adult "knot hair" - tie hair. Male 20-year-old hair and crown, women 15-year-old hair and maturity, said adult.
Thirty years old: Zhili, Beijun, Kezhuang
Derived from Confucius' words (earlier), Zhili means "to establish oneself, to set one's mind on something".
Beginning room - from "Rituals - Nei Zi", "When you have a room at thirty, you begin to take care of men's affairs."
Kezhuang - in the prime of life. Tang Wei Zheng's "is gradual not grams end sparse": "the beginning of the Zhenguan, when the release of grams strong."
40 years old: not confused
Originally from Confucius, "not confused" means "not perplexed, not confused".
50 years old: ai, know the fate of heaven (知天命), half-hundred
Ai - from Li Ji - Qu Li Shang: "Fifty is said to be ai."
Knowing the fate of heaven - from Confucius' remarks. The Analects of Confucius - For Political Affairs: "Fifty years old and know the fate of heaven. It is said that after the age of fifty, know the ideal of the realization of the difficult, so do things no longer pursue results, personal glory and shame has been indifferent. Later generations used the term "knowing the fate of heaven" as a synonym for the age of fifty.
60 years of age: the ear of the smooth, the age of armor, Jie (qí)
Ear of the smooth - from the remarks of Confucius;
HuaJia - China to ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, according to the order of the sixty units, with the order to match. In China, the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches are paired in order to form sixty units, and the sixty-year cycle begins again and again. It is usually called "sixty years", also known as the "flower armor".
61 years old: the return of the calendar life
According to the dry-branch chronology, 60 years for a round, 61 years of age is a new round of recalculation, so it is known as "return of the calendar".
70 years old: the year of the heart, the year of old age, the year of the staff, the year of government
From the heart - from the words of Confucius;
Age of old age - from Du Fu's poems;
The year of the heart, from the words of Confucius;
The year of the old age, from Du Fu's poems;
The morning returns to the daytime ceremony of spring clothes, and every day the head of the river returns as drunk as it can be.
Drinking debt is common everywhere, life is seventy years old.
The nymphalid butterflies are y seen, and the dragonflies fly in the water.
The word is out that the scenery is ****ing flowing, so don't go against it for the time being.
Tang Du Fu, "Two Songs on Qujiang River"
The Year of the Staff State - the year in which a person who has passed the age of seventy can walk on crutches in the capital city, the state capital;
The Year of Zhizheng - the year in which an official puts his ruling authority in power. -The official returns the ruling authority to the monarch. Refers to an official resigning and returning home.
77 years old: joyful longevity
The cursive character for joyfulness looks like seventy-seven, so it is a substitute.
80 years old: Umbrella Shou
Because the cursive character for "umbrella" resembles "eighty", it is called.
88 years old: Mishou
Because the character for "rice" looks like eighty-eight, it is used as a reference. In addition, it also contains the meaning that although you are old, you have a strong appetite.
90 years old: mackerel, frozen pear
Indicates the state of the skin of an elderly person, see previous section.
99 years old: Bai Shou
Bai Shao Yi is "white", also 99, so it is a reference.
100 years old: the period of Yi
Period, Zhu Xi said it is "the meaning of circumference", that is, turned a circle, "that a hundred years has been week". Yi, Zhu Xi said is "said when raised only". That is, living and living needs to be maintained.
"Li Ji - Qu Li on": "a hundred years is said to Yi." Meaning: when a person reaches the age of 100, he needs to be taken care of by his filial son in all aspects of his life, such as diet and living.
108 years old: tea life
The word tea above twenty, the following for the eighty-eight, the two add up to 108.
140 years old: double rare, double celebration
Anciently rare 70 years old, double rare that is, two times, 140 years old.