Chinese Character Wiki
無

wú

negative

Original meaning: 

dance

Pictograph of a person dancing, with ox tails or bird feathers hanging from his arms, to pray for rain. Original form of 舞 (dance). The current form is a phonetic loan.

Evolution

無 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
無 Bronze script Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)

Bronze script

Late Shang dynasty (~1100 BC)
無 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

无 (無) 

wú

negative, no, not; lack, have no; not to have; no; none; not; to lack; un-; -less

Most common words with 無
Freq.
Word
Meaning

无

no

无法

unable

无论

no matter what or how

无聊

bored

毫无

not in the least

Component uses

Sound component in 7 characters (1 verified)

舞 撫 蕪 嫵 廡 嘸 鄦

Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)

舞

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*ma

mju

wú

not have

*ma

mju

wú

volitional prefix

*mo

mju

wú

don’t


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 98.0618% of movies

165th most common character in movies

105th most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

12

Simplified

无

Unicode

U+7121

Shuowen

“，豐也。从林、。或說規模字。从大；，數之積也；林者，木之多也。與庶同意。《商書》曰：｀庶草繁無’。”


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