Glossary

Feng shui & architecture glossary

Each term has a definition that stands on its own, its Chinese characters and how Home Check uses it.

Compass & qi theory

24 Mountains
二十四山
The 24 mountains divide the 360° compass into 24 equal sectors of 15°, each called a mountain.
Set polarity
立极
Setting polarity means finding the centre of a house on its floor plan and placing the compass there, turned to the measured facing degree.
Sitting and facing
坐向
Sitting is the side a house leans its back against; facing is the side it looks out from.
Bagua
八卦
The bagua are the eight three-line trigrams of the I Ching: Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun and Dui.
Early Heaven and Later Heaven bagua
先天八卦 · 后天八卦
Early Heaven and Later Heaven are two arrangements of the eight trigrams around a circle.
Nine palaces (Lo Shu)
九宫 · 洛书
The nine palaces are a 3×3 grid that divides a plan into eight palaces around a centre palace.
Center palace
中宫
The center palace is the middle square of the nine palaces, around the centre of the house; in the Lo Shu it holds the number 5 and the Earth element.
Five elements
五行
The five elements are Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth, linked by two cycles.
Birth-year mountain
年命山
A person's birth-year mountain is the compass mountain that shares the Earthly Branch of their birth year.
Prosperous and weak sectors
旺方 · 衰方
Prosperous sectors are the parts of a home considered to have strong, favourable energy for its orientation; weak sectors have faint energy.
Death point
死点
The death point is the sector where, given the house's orientation, energy is considered most depleted.
Xuan Kong Flying Stars
玄空飞星
Xuan Kong Flying Stars is a feng shui school in which nine stars, numbered 1 to 9, fly through the nine palaces in Lo Shu order.
Five Yellow
五黄
The Five Yellow is star number 5 among the nine stars; each year it flies to a different direction in Lo Shu order.

Landform & water

Water method
水法
Water methods read how water moves around a site — where it comes from, where it gathers and where it leaves — and compare it with the house's sitting and facing to judge good and bad.
Water Mouth
水口
The Water Mouth is where water leaves a site or the bright hall in front of a house, measured as a degree from the centre of the home.
Grand scale
大局
The grand scale is the widest range in reading landform and water: the rivers, lakes and major hills of the whole region around a site.
Middle scale
中局
The middle scale is the intermediate range in reading landform and water: the rise and fall of the land within a few kilometres of the site.
Small scale
小局
The small scale is the range right around the house: the street, lane, yard and drains next to the site.
Street water
街道水 · 虚水
Street water is the practice in urban water methods of treating streets and lanes as waterways, because flows of people and vehicles carry energy the way water does.
Dragon Entry
龙入首
Dragon Entry is the last stretch of a dragon vein — a line of higher ground that carries energy — before it enters a site or house.
Dragon veins
地脉
Dragon veins are lines that carry energy along ridges of higher ground — mountains, hills, mounds — like the veins of the earth.
Sha (surrounding landforms)
砂
Sha are the mounds, hills or buildings around a site that shield it from wind and hold energy.
Bright hall
明堂
The bright hall is the open space in front of a house where energy gathers before entering the main door.
Contours
等高线
Contour lines join points of equal elevation on a terrain map.
Direct wind
直冲风
Direct wind is a strong current of air that blows straight at the main door or rushes right through a house.
Hide the wind, gather the qi
藏风聚气
"Hide the wind, gather the qi" — shelter from wind and energy is kept — is the root principle of feng shui.

Inside the home

Main door as qi intake
大门纳气
The main door as qi intake is the idea that the main door is the mouth of the home (the qi mouth), where outside energy comes in.
Door–kitchen–WC alignment
门灶厕对冲
Alignment is when the main door, the stove and a WC door sit on one straight axis, looking straight at each other.
Bed head
床头
The bed head is where the pillow lies and the sleeper's head rests.
Altar sitting
神台坐向
An altar's sitting is the side its back rests against, opposite the direction it faces.
Light well
天井
A light well is a vertical void open to the sky that brings light and air into the middle of a house.

Architecture & codes

Building coverage ratio
建筑密度
Building coverage ratio is the percentage of a plot covered by the building's footprint.
Setback
建筑退界
The setback is the distance from the street boundary line (between road land and the plot) to the building line (which the house may not cross).

Do this for your own home in the app

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Scan with your phone to get Home Check.

Markdown version of this page Index for machine readers (llms.txt)