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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

忘

wàng
to forget
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 心
  • 7 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *maŋ, *maŋs): phonetic 亡 (OC *maŋ) + semantic 心 (“heart”). Doublet of 忙 (OC *maːŋ).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ma (“not”). Originally the same word as 亡 (OC *maŋ, “to lose, disappear, flee”) as suggested by Shijing rimes, but it was later suffixed with a perfective suffix *-s (or *-h), literally "it has disappeared (from mind)" (Schuessler, 2007).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ma “not”
  • soundChinese亡 “to run away; to flee; to escape”
  • meaningChinese心 “heart (Classifier: 顆／颗 m; 個／个 c; 粒 mn)”

Meanings

character
  1. to forget
  2. to neglect
  3. to miss; to omit

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

忘：不識也。从心从亡，亡亦聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 不記得。 例：忘記、遺忘、得意忘形

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

How 忘 was written 字形演變

  1. 忘 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 忘 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 忘 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 忘 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 忘 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 忘