無
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Translingual
Stroke order (cursive) | |||
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Han character
無 (Kangxi radical 86, 火+8, 12 strokes, cangjie input 人廿火 (OTF), four-corner 80331, composition ⿱⿳𠂉卌一灬)
Derived characters
Related characters
Further reading
- KangXi: page 673, character 26
- Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 19113
- Dae Jaweon: page 1081, character 24
- Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 3, page 2211, character 15
- Unihan data for U+7121
Chinese
trad. | 無 | |
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simp. | 无 | |
alternative forms |
Glyph origin
Historical forms of the character 無 | |||||
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Shang | Western Zhou | Warring States | Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) | Liushutong (compiled in Ming) | |
Oracle bone script | Bronze inscriptions | Chu slip and silk script | Qin slip script | Small seal script | Transcribed ancient scripts |
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Pictogram (象形) . A man dancing with something long held in both hands.
This character is borrowed for “have no”, and the character 舞 is used for the original sense.
Etymology 1
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.
Pronunciation
Definitions
無
- (literary or Hakka, Min) to not have something; there is not ...
- 天空無雲。/天空无云。 ― Tiānkōng wú yún. ― There is no cloud in the sky.
- 我無零星錢。/我无零星钱。 [Hokkien] ― Góa bô lân-san-chîⁿ. [Pe̍h-ōe-jī] ― I don't have any change.
- 也許一想起某某是唯一可鍾意 才來害怕無下次其實多麼諷刺 [Literary Cantonese, trad.]
- From: 2019, 林家謙/林家谦 [Terence Lam], 下一位前度 [NEXT]
- jaa5 heoi2 jat1 soeng2 hei2 mau5 mau5 si6 wai4 jat1 ho2 zung1 ji3, coi4 loi4 hoi6 paa3 mou4 haa6 ci3 kei4 sat6 do1 mo1 fung3 ci3 [Jyutping]
- Maybe once I think of someone as the only one I can love, I would be afraid that there would not be a next time, but it's actually quite ridiculous
也许一想起某某是唯一可钟意 才来害怕无下次其实多么讽刺 [Literary Cantonese, simp.]
- (literary or Min) Negation particle preceding verbs and adjectives. not
- (literary or Min) have not
- (literary or Hakka, Min) Interrogative particle.
- (Hakka, Min) if not; otherwise (placed at the start of a sentence)
- (Hokkien, Teochew) Particle used after a verb to indicate that a goal has not or cannot been accomplished.
- † regardless of; no matter whether
- † nothing; nil
- 從無到有/从无到有 ― cóng wú dào yǒu ― start from nothing, from scratch
- † Alternative form of 毋 (wú, “do not”).
- without; -less; un-
Synonyms
Variety | Location | Words |
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Formal (Written Standard Chinese) | 不到 | |
Mandarin | Taiwan | 不到 |
Malaysia | 不到 | |
Singapore | 不到 | |
Cantonese | Guangzhou | 唔到 |
Hong Kong | 唔到 | |
Kuala Lumpur (Guangfu) | 唔到 | |
Penang (Guangfu) | 唔到 | |
Singapore (Guangfu) | 唔到 | |
Min Nan | Xiamen | 無 |
Taipei | 無 GT | |
Penang (Hokkien) | 無 | |
Singapore (Hokkien) | 無 | |
Jieyang | 無 | |
Singapore (Teochew) | 無 | |
Wu | Shanghai | 弗著 |
Suzhou | 弗著 | |
Ningbo | 弗著 | |
Note | GT - General Taiwanese (no specific region identified) |
Compounds
Pronunciation
Compounds
Etymology 3
For pronunciation and definitions of 無 – see 冇 (“to not have; to not exist; etc.”). (This character, 無, is a variant form of 冇.) |
Further reading
- “Entry #8588”, in 臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan] (in Chinese and Min Nan), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2011.
Japanese
Readings
Compounds
See 無/derived terms § Japanese.
Kanji in this term |
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無 |
む Grade: 4 |
on’yomi |
Alternative spelling |
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无 |
Noun
無 • (mu)
- nothing, nothingness
- Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information. mu; the null set: neither yes nor no (in response to a koan or other question that mistakenly assumes an affirmative or negative answer).
Descendants
- Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.
Korean
Alternative forms
- Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.
Etymology
From Middle Chinese Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.. Recorded as Middle Korean Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information. (Yale: mwu) in Sinjeung Yuhap [[w:ko:신증유합|(Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.)]], 1576.
Pronunciation
Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.
Hanja
Wikisource Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.
Compounds
Vietnamese
Han character
Lua error: not enough memory. See Wiktionary:Lua memory errors for more information.