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Stroke order (cursive) | |||
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無 (Kangxi radical 86, 火+8, 12 strokes, cangjie input 人廿火 (OTF), four-corner 80331, composition ⿱⿳𠂉卌一灬)
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 |
Pictogram (象形) . A man 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.
trad. | 無 | |
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simp. | 无 | |
alternative forms |
Core Sino–Tibetan. From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ma (“no, not”); cognate with Tibetan མ་ (ma, “not”) and Burmese မ (ma., “not”).
Cognate with:
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.
無
Variety | Location | Words |
---|---|---|
Formal (Written Standard Chinese) | 不到 | |
Northeastern 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 | |
Southern Min | Xiamen | 無 |
Taipei | 無 GT | |
Penang (Hokkien) | 無 | |
Singapore (Hokkien) | 無 | |
Manila (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) |
trad. | 無 | |
---|---|---|
simp. | 无 | |
alternative forms | 嘸/呒 |
無
For pronunciation and definitions of 無 – see 冇 (“to not have; to not exist; etc.”). (This character is a variant form of 冇). |
Kanji in this term |
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無 |
む Grade: 4 |
goon |
Alternative spelling |
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无 |
From Middle Chinese 無 (MC mju). The 呉音 (goon), so likely an earlier borrowing.
Kanji in this term |
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無 |
ぶ Grade: 4 |
kan'on |
From Middle Chinese 無 (bu). The 漢音 (kan'on), so likely a later borrowing.
From Middle Chinese 無 (MC mju). Recorded as Middle Korean 무 (mwu) (Yale: mwu) in Sinjeung Yuhap (新增類合 / 신증유합), 1576.
無: Hán Việt readings: vô[1][2][3][4], mô[2]
無: Nôm readings: vô[1][2][4][5], mô[2][6][4]