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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

冒

/mɑʊ̯⁵¹/
to cover
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 5
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 冂
  • 9 strokes

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Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *muːɡs, *mɯːɡ): phonetic 冃 (OC *muːɡs, “hat”) + semantic 目 (“eyes”). 冃 is the original form, 目 was added later. Original form of 帽 (OC *muːɡs, “hat”).

See also 敖, 免, and 美.

Original meaning was “to cover”.

Sino-Tibetan. Schuessler (2007) connects it with Proto-Sino-Tibetan *muːŋ ~ r/s-muːk (“sky, clouds, fog, dark, covered”), whence Burmese မိုး (mui:, “sky; rain; to hold something over the head; roof”), Tibetan མུ (mu), དམུ (dmu), རྨུ (rmu), སྨུ (smu, “(archaic) sky”).

Derivative: 帽 (OC *muːɡs, “hat”).

Etymology 2

“Covetous”. Compare 每 (OC *mɯːʔ, “to covet”).

Etymology 4

Contracted form of 木佬佬.

Etymology 5

Transcription character, preserving the original pronunciation at the time of borrowing.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese冃 “hat”
  • meaningChinese目 “eye (Classifier: 雙／双 mn-t)”

Related: Burmese မိုး, Tibetan མུ

Words built on it: 感冒

Meanings

character
  1. to cover
  2. cloth used to dress a corpse; sack for corpses
  3. to wear a hat
  4. original form of 帽 (mào, “hat”)
  5. to pretend to be
  6. to risk; to brave; to face

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

冒：冡而前也。从冃从目。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 由下往上或往外透出、發散。 例：冒煙、冒氣、冒汗
  2. 衝犯、不顧。 例：冒險、冒犯
  3. 假稱、假託。 例：冒名、假冒
  4. 鹵莽、莽撞。 例：冒失、冒進

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 冒 was written 字形演變

  1. 冒 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 冒 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 冒 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 冒 in Clerical script
    Clerical
    隸書
    Han
  5. 冒 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 冒