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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

忽

/xu⁵⁵/
suddenly; abruptly
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 心
  • 8 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *hmɯːd): phonetic 勿 (OC *mɯd) + semantic 心 (“heart”). Folk etymology interprets it as an ideogrammic compound.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • soundChinese勿 “do not; don't”
  • meaningChinese心 “heart (Classifier: 顆／颗 m; 個／个 c; 粒 mn)”

Words built on it: 忽然

Meanings

character
  1. suddenly; abruptly
  2. to neglect; to ignore
  3. the number 10⁻⁵; 1/100000th of certain units of measure
  4. traditional unit of length equal to 1/100000th of 寸 (cùn, “Chinese inch, ¹/₃ decimeter”) ≈ 0.33 micron
  5. traditional unit of weight equal to 1/100000th of 錢／钱 (qián, “mace”) = 50 microgram
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

忽：忘也。从心勿聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 不留心、不注意。 例：忽略、疏忽
  2. 輕視、瞧不起。 例：忽視
  3. 突然。 例：忽喜忽憂、忽冷忽熱

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

How 忽 was written 字形演變

  1. 忽 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 忽 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 忽 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: 忽