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内卷

內卷
nèi juǎn

Meanings

CC-CEDICT

nèi juǎn
  1. 1.(embryology) to involute; involution
  2. 2.(neologism, attested by 2017) (of a society) to become more and more of a rat race; to become increasingly competitive (due to limited resources)

CC-CEDICT · CC BY-SA

Wiktionary

  1. 1.to undergo involution: to stop developing or progressing despite intense inner competition
  2. 2.to be in a state of increased competition for limited resources, requiring great effort to stay ahead
  3. 3.to study harder or work longer as a result of intense competition among peers

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Etymology

Calque of English involution, from its Latin roots. This sense was coined in Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia (1963) by Clifford Geertz, as an antonym of evolution, where Geertz observed Javanese and Balinese rice farmers failed to transit from labor-intensive farming to capital-intensive farming, but rather developing intensive competition that did not increase productivity.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Stroke order

Components

Components from cjk-decomp · MIT

Characters

More examples & usage (AI)

Derived terms

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA