Jingzhe

See also: Jīngzhé

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Mandarin 惊蛰 (Jīngzhé), from 惊 (jīng, “rouse, startle, stir”) +‎ 蛰 (zhé, “hibernate”), literally “rouse [insects] from [their] hibernation”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɪŋ.d͡ʒʌ/

Proper noun

Jingzhe

1. The “Waking of Insects”; the Chinese third solar term — a “month” lasting from the fifth to the twentieth days of March.
   • 1998, Robert B. Marks, Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China‎^[1], →ISBN, page 111:

     In Cenxi county, south of Wuzhou on a tributary flowing into the West River, the local gazetteer even assigned a specific date to the introduction of double cropping of rice: “Planting an early crop of rice first began during the Tianqi reign (1621–27), [and after that] each year two crops were harvested. The early crop is planted at Jingzhe [“Waking of the Insects”, March 5] and harvested in Xiaoshu or Dashu [“Lesser” or “Greater Heat”, July 7–23]. The late crop is planted at Mengzhong [“Grain in the Ear”, June 6] and harvested in the first month of the winter [mid-November].”

   • 2004, Hanchao Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century‎^[2], →ISBN, page 298:

     In Shanghai, popular beliefs such as the idea that a thunderstorm prior to Jingzhe (the Waking of Hibernation, third solar period) foretells a bad year, eating many watermelons after Liqiu (the Beginning of Autumn, thirteenth solar period) may cause typhoid, tonics are most efficacious if taken after Dongzhi (the Winter Solstice, twenty-second solar period), and so on remained powerful in the twentieth century.