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· Words the leaves use

Glossary

Short, plain definitions for the words you meet on the leaves. Each term has its own page; this leaf gives the gist in a minute.

Terms
3 in this edition
Each gives
Chinese, pinyin, one line
Read in
English · 繁 · 简

C · term 1 of 3: Cun

All 3 terms, A to Z
Greyed letters have no term yet.More to readThe basics, in three short leavesQuestions people ask
詞 · C · term 1 of 3

Cun

cùnnoun · a unit of lengthAlso: 同身寸 tóngshēn cùn, the body’s own inch
Means

The cun is East Asian medicine’s body-proportional unit of distance: counted not in tape-measure centimetres but in widths taken from the person being measured. This page explains where the idea comes from, how the finger-width shortcuts work, and how to read the cun counts you will meet across this site.

In one line

Your own thumb’s width: the ruler every location on this site is written in.

Meet it

In nearly every location line, such as “2 cun above the wrist crease”. Three worked examples:

See also
Finger-width shortcuts on your own hand: one cun is the thumb at the knuckle; one and a half cun is the index and middle fingers together; two cun is three fingers; three cun is all four fingers.1.5 cuntwo fingers2 cunthree3 cunfour1 cunmeasured across the middle knucklesthumb
Use the hand of the person being measured. Finger widths are first guesses; let bones and tendons decide.
· Asked oftenIs a cun just another word for a centimetre?No. The syllable cun also names an ordinary market unit of length in China — a little over three centimetres — but that fixed measure is not what this site means. Every cun on our point pages is proportional: a slice of the reader’s own body, taken from thumb widths and stacked fingers, convertible to no ruler at all.
Read the whole entry →Educational reading. Not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for care.