The term wangyang (望洋) in Autumn Floods, Chapter Seventeen of Chuang-tzu has been interpreted as mangyang (盳洋), wangyang (望阳), or wangyang (望羊), the last one being generally acknowledged as the formal one, which means being looking up, or looking into the distance. Modern scholars argue that wangyang (望羊) should be a Chinese rhyming compound or disyllabic Chinese term, semantically either taking the old explanation for granted, or gaining some new viewpoints in terms of its ambiguity of the core meaning by finding out the homogeneous words of wangyang. After analyzing numerous instances from ancient times up to now, however, we hold that wangyang is not a rhyming compound or disyllabic term but a modifier-and-the-modified phrase that refers to a kind of eye disease in ancient times. The disease is characterized by the more white content of each eye which covers much of its bottom part and by the smallness of each pupil which just covers its top, seemingly unable to move. Furthermore, wangyang in either case acts as a predicate, without modifying a verb or noun in the sentence. Therefore, the original meaning of wangyang is the appearance of fixing one’s eyes up at something. As this meaning extends, it referred to looking far into the distance, which describes someone with a great ambition. In interpreting wangyang in Autumn Floods, it has today been connected by mistake with the phrase xiangruo’ertan in the chapter. But when wangyang goes with mu (eye) in the same chapter, it stands for its original meaning. This sentence that describes the River God has a profound metaphorical meaning. The reason why wangyang cannot be explained accurately for a long time is that critical interpretation of ancient text is only semantic interpretation instead of lexical interpretation, thus leading to the misunderstanding and wrong interpretation of a rhyming compound or disyllabic term.