Qing (Blue-Green)

Qing is the traditional colour category covering blue, green and black-green — a single term where modern English uses three. Qing is the clearest example of the traditional palette not mapping onto modern colour categories: it covers sky-blue, leaf-green and the near-black of deep water. Reading it requires knowing which of those is meant.

It depends on the setting rather than on the color alone. Qing is the traditional colour category covering blue, green and black-green — a single term where modern English uses three. The single term covering blue and green is the point: the tradition groups them by the quality of being living and unfixed, not by hue.

Sources assign qing to Wood, to the east and to spring. It is the colour of the sky and of growing things at once, which is why the boundary is not drawn. It is grouped under Wood (木) in the five-element system.