Chinese Character Wiki
否

fǒu, pǐ

not

Originally the same character as 不. Distinguishing component 口 was added later to the character when it took on the meaning "not". 不 represents the sound.

Components
不 sound,meaning component

不  Sound Meaning component

bù

  

no

口 distinguishing component

口  Distinguishing component

kǒu

  

mouth

Added later when the character started to mean "not" and to distinguish from 不.

Evolution

否 Bronze script Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)

Bronze script

Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
否 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

Shuowen (~100 AD)
否 Clerical script Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)

Clerical script

Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)
否 Regular script Modern

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

否  

fǒu

not, no, negative; final particle; to negate; to deny; not

否  

pǐ

clogged; evil

Most common words with 否
Freq.
Word
Meaning

是否

if

否则

if not

能否

whether or not

否认

to deny

否

not

Component uses

Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)

咅

Sound component in 2 characters (1 verified)

咅 痞

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*pəʔ

pjuwX

fǒu

not


Statistics

HSK level 3

Appears in 72.4812% of movies

509th most common character in movies

620th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

7

Unicode

U+5426

Shuowen

“否，不也。从口，从不，不亦聲。”


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