Yaoguai (妖怪 pinyin yāoguài) is a term for monsters or strange creatures. Yaogui (妖鬼 yāoguǐ, lit. "strange ghost"), yaomo (妖魔 yāomó, lit. "daemon") or yaojing (妖精 yāojīng, often translated as "sprite" or "faerie") are loosely related terms. Etymology Yaoguai (妖怪) is a compound word consisting of two Chinese characters. 妖 (yāo) is a noun meaning monster or demon. 怪 (guài) means strange or unusual when used as an adjective, and monster or unusual creature as a noun. Each word individually signifies and connotes strangeness. Classical usages of both terms relate to preternatural phenomena and freakish occurrences where explanation fell outside the limited understanding of those observing them. These included freakish vegetation ("草妖")，eerie sounds ("鼓妖")，the unnatural onset of fog and darkness ("夜妖")，as well as a sudden loss in verbal fluency or inability to express oneself ("诗妖"). Yāo are blamed for sudden outbreaks of confused and erratic action, or transgressive behaviour ("胡作非为"), with one saying being that "when affairs go awry, there must have been a yāo (acting)" ("事出反必有妖"). In later terminology, yāo refers to natural objects (animals, plants or rocks) which have acquired sentience (lit. spiritual awareness), the ability to assume human or near-human forms, supernatural or magical powers, as well as the ability to cultivate so as to achieve immortality or transcendence. In Wang Chong's 1st century text the Balanced Discussions, things such as animals, plants, and rocks are said to be endowed a human-like essence and capacities as a result of immense age ("物之老者，其精为人"). 怪 (pinyin: guai) is much broader and can refer to any kind of monstrous entity, whether inherently magical or not. It includes chimeric species of various kinds such as found in the Classic of Mountain and Seas, as well as quasi-humanoid entities such as the 魑, the 魅, 魍魉, and the 坟羊, which possess inconsistent or overlapping descriptions. Read together in the modern era, 妖怪 is a Chinese umbrella term that generally means "eldritch monster" and includes a wide range of entities which have a resemblance to the goblins and the unseelie faeries of other cultures. The term is usually used in Chinese mythology, folklore, and popular entertainment. Mythology A yao (妖, pinyin: yāo) is a supernatural creature with uncanny properties, usually dwelling in remote wildernesses or at the fringes of civilisation, and arising as the result of anomalies in the material force (qi) that pervades the natural world. In folklore, their characteristic attributes include