Year of the Wood Ox
The Year of the Wood Ox falls in 1925, 1985, and 2045. The animal sets the character, and the Wood element colors it: persistence and endurance plus a drive to grow and expand. The year is considered yin, meaning calmer and more inward-looking.
Who Was Born in This Year
People born in 1985 (as well as in 1925 and, in the future, in 2045) belong to the “Ox” sign with the “Wood” element.
Important: the Chinese year begins around February 4. People born in January or the first days of February 1985 belong to the previous year of the cycle — check with the calculator.
Personality
The sign's core quality is persistence and endurance. Strength: the ability to finish what others have abandoned. Weak spot: stubbornness and reluctance to change a decision.
The Wood element adds a drive to grow and expand, but it also stretches out timelines and adds a tendency toward pie-in-the-sky schemes. The sum is a person whose persistence works quietly and inwardly: they act more slowly, but more steadily.
The same combination applies to the year itself: it's good for long-term work, building, and anything done thoroughly. At the same time, Wood stretches out timelines and adds a tendency toward pie-in-the-sky schemes.
The Year's Element and Color
The year's element is Wood, and its colors are green and turquoise. Its polarity is yin (receptive; the odd-numbered years of the cycle).
In the Chinese tradition, the color of the year is the color of its element, not a “trendy shade”: it is determined unambiguously and isn't chosen by anyone. More on the element’s properties is on its own page.
Compatibility
Compatibility is determined by the animal, not the element. The best partners for the Ox are the signs in its triangle; the most difficult is the opposite sign.
All 78 pairs are covered in Chinese zodiac compatibility, and the sign’s own profile is on its own page.
Years of This Sign
Each combination of animal and element recurs once every 60 years — this is the full Chinese cycle, the jiazi. So the Year of the Wood Ox falls in 1925, 1985, and 2045, and the next one comes only sixty years after the last.
The full 60-year table, with years and elements.