性命

life

nature / character / property / quality / attribute / sexuality / sex / gender / suffix forming adjective from verb / suffix forming noun from adjective, corresponding to -ness or -ity / essence / CL:個|个[ge4]

life / fate / order or command / to assign a name, title etc

vitally important / a matter of life and death

if one is too calculating, it will be the cause of one's own undoing (famous line in "A Dream of Red Mansions" 紅樓夢|红楼梦[Hong2 lou2 Meng4])