xingqi (Chinese: 行氣; trans. "circulating qi / breath") is a group of breath-control techniques that have been developed and practiced from the Warring States period (c. 475-221 BCE) to the present. Examples include Traditional Chinese medicine, Daoist meditation, daoyin breathing calisthenics, taixi embryonic breathing, neidan internal alchemy, neigong internal exercises, qigong deep-breathing exercises, and taijiquan slow-motion martial art. Since the polysemous keyword qi can mean natural "breath; air" and/or alleged supernatural "vital breath; life force", xingqi signifies "circulating breath" in meditational contexts or "activating vital breath" in medical contexts.

Xíngqì (行氣) is a linguistic compound of two Chinese words:

In Standard Chinese phonology, this character 行 is usually pronounced as rising second tone xíng above, but also can be pronounced as falling fourth tone xìng (行) meaning "actions, conduct, behavior, custom(ary); [Buddhism] conditioned states, conditioned things [translation of Sanskrit Saṅkhāra]" or second tone háng (行) "walkway, road; column, line, row, e.g., of soldiers, serried mountains, written text".

In terms of Chinese character classification, xíng (行) was originally a pictograph of "crossroads", and qì (氣) is a compound ideograph with qì (气; "air; gas; vapor") and mǐ (米; "rice"), creating "气 steam rising from 米 rice as it cooks". Qi has an uncommon variant character (炁) that is especially used in "magical" Daoist talismans, charms, and petitions.

The unabridged Hanyu Da Cidian ("Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary"), which is lexicographically comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary, defines xingqi in three meanings:

There is no standard English translation of Chinese xingqi, as evident in:

Within this sample, xing is most often translated as "circulate/circulating/circulation", but owing to the polysemous meanings of qi it is rendered as "breath", "vapor(s)", "pneuma(s)", or transliterated as qi. Nathan Sivin rejected translating with the ancient Greek word pneuma ("breath; spirit, soul" or "breath of life" in Stoicism) as too narrow for the semantic range of qi:

By 350 [BCE], when philosophy began to be systematic, qi meant air, breath, vapor, and other pneumatic stuff. It might be congealed or compacted in liquids or solids. Qi also referred to the balanced and ordered vitalities or energies, partly derived from the air we breathe, that cause physical changes and maintain life. These are not distinct meanings.