粪便

• Pinyin: fèn biàn
• Hanzi breakdown: 粪 = character for dung/excrement (historically processed grain → by-product); 便 = 人 + 更 (person + change — bodily changes; relief)

Meaning

Faeces; excrement. The standard medical and scientific term for solid waste matter excreted from the body.

More formal than 大便 (everyday) and more clinical than 粪 (agricultural). Used in health reports, environmental studies, and laboratory diagnostics. Central to discussions of sanitation infrastructure, disease transmission, and epidemiology.

Examples

1. 公共卫生调查结果显示，该地区饮用水源已受到人畜粪便污染，相关部门立即启动了紧急水质处置预案。 Public health survey results show that local drinking water sources have been contaminated by human and animal feces, so the relevant authorities immediately launched an emergency water-quality response plan.
2. 新型检测技术能够从粪便样本中提取并分析肠道微生物群落的基因信息，为精准诊断消化系统疾病提供重要参考。 New testing technology can extract and analyze genetic information from gut microbial communities in fecal samples, providing important support for the precise diagnosis of digestive system diseases.
3. 在卫生基础设施薄弱的地区，粪便管理不善是导致霍乱、痢疾等肠道传染病周期性暴发的主要根源之一。 In areas with weak sanitation infrastructure, poor feces management is one of the main causes of periodic outbreaks of intestinal infectious diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

Usage Guide

Context: medicine, public-health, environment, science

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 研究证实，粪便经口传播是诺如病毒和甲肝扩散的主要途径，因此手部卫生至关重要。(Research shows that fecal-oral transmission is the main route by which norovirus and hepatitis A spread, so hand hygiene is crucial.)
• 该检测项目要求患者在规定时间内收集粪便样本并及时送检，以确保检测结果的准确性不受样本存储时间过长的影响。(The test requires patients to collect faecal samples within the specified time and promptly submit them for testing, to ensure that accuracy of results is not affected by excessively long sample storage.)

Don't Say

• 粪便 in casual conversation — 大便 is the standard polite everyday term; 粪便 is specifically for medical, sanitation, and scientific discourse and sounds clinical in ordinary speech

Origin & History

粪 (excrement/dung) + 便 (defecation/bodily discharge) — a compound combining two terms for bodily waste, forming the standard clinical term

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal