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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

無

wú
to not have; there is not; there does not exist
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 4
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 火
  • 12 strokes
  • 嘸
  • 呒

Etymology graph

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  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
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Origin

Pictogram (象形). A person dancing with ox tails held in both hands to pray for rain.

This character is borrowed for “have no”, and the character 舞 (wǔ) is used for the original sense.

Core Sino–Tibetan. From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ma (“no, not”); cognate with Tibetan མ་ (ma, “not”) and Burmese မ (ma., “not”).

Cognate with:

* 微 (OC *mɯl, “not, no”)

* 毋 (OC *ma, “do not”)

* 勿 (OC *mɯd, “not, don't”)

* 未 (OC *mɯds, “not yet, haven't”)

* 靡 (OC *mralʔ, “not, no”)

* 亡 (OC *maŋ, “not have; to flee, to disappear, to die”)

* 沒 (OC *mɯːd, “to end, to disappear, to drown”)

* 莫 (OC *maːɡ, “none, nobody, nothing; do not; can not”)

Attested profusely in Classical Chinese, this word is the prototypical negation particle in the *m- series of Chinese negatives. In the oracle bone script, however, 無 is not frequently used, and its homophone (or near-homophone) 毋 (OC *ma) is used instead.

See 不 (OC *pɯ, *pɯʔ, *pɯ', “not”) for more on negative particles in Old Chinese.

Perhaps related to 巫 (OC *ma, “shaman, wizard, magician, sorcerer, witch”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese丿 “left-falling stroke, usually read as 撇”
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese卌 “forty”
  • partChinese灬 “bristles”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*ma “not”

Related: Tibetan མ་, Burmese မ

Words built on it: 舞, 無法

Meanings

character
  1. to not have; there is not; there does not exist
  2. Negation particle preceding verbs and adjectives. not
  3. have not
  4. Interrogative particle.
  5. if not; otherwise (placed at the start of a sentence)
  6. Particle used after a verb to indicate that a goal has not or cannot been accomplished.

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

無：亡也。从亡無聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 沒有、不存在。與「有」相對。 例：有頭無尾、獨一無二
  2. 不、未。 例：無記名投票
  3. 別、不要。 例：碩鼠碩鼠，無食我黍。（《詩經．魏風．碩鼠》）
  4. 不論、不管。 例：事無大小，都由他決定。

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

How 無 was written 字形演變

  1. 無 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 無 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 無 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 無 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 無 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 無 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

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • 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: 無