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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

負

fù
to carry (on the back); to bear (a burden or responsibility)
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 3
  • TOCFL 7
  • radical 貝
  • 9 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): ⺈ (“person”) + 貝 (“cowry”).

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bə(q) (“carry, shoulder”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*bə(q) “to carry (on back), shoulder”
  • ideaChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • ideaChinese貝 “shellfish; cowrie”

Meanings

character
  1. to carry (on the back); to bear (a burden or responsibility)
  2. to rely on; to load; to burden
  3. to betray; to abandon; to repudiate; to go against
  4. to lose; to be defeated
  5. negative

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

負：恃也。从人守貝，有所恃也。一曰受貸不償。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 憑恃、憑藉。 例：自負
  2. 以肩背物。 例：負薪、負笈、負荊請罪
  3. 擔荷、承擔。 例：負責、負荷、身負重任
  4. 享有。 例：久負盛名
  5. 遭受。 例：負傷
  6. 虧欠、拖欠。 例：負債

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

How 負 was written 字形演變

  1. 負 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 負 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 負 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: 負