Abstract: The evolution of word meaning is a common phenomenon in all languages. "East", "West" originally refer to the directions, and then gradually evolved into a semantic -rich compound noun "things". The "thing", which means the substance, refers to the rare and strange objects from the West, abstract things or the semantic meaning of a specific person or animal in the late Ming Dynasty, and the emotional color attached to the "thing" referring to the specific person and the animal comes from the context. The subjective cognition of human beings and the objective factors of social development and change promote the derivation of the meaning "things". The evolution process of word meaning is parallel, subjective and metonymy is its cognitive mechanism.

Key words: East and West, word meaning evolution, word meaning infection, metonymy, subjective