wú

How it’s built

Originally a pictograph of a person (大) dancing with ornamental leather hides (革) hanging from his arms, conveying the meaning "dance". Later, two feet (舛) were added to the bottom of the character to form 舞 (dance), and 無 was borrowed for its sound to represent the meaning "not". The simplified character 无 was adapted from the cursive form of the traditional character 無.

大

iconic

big — Depicts a person.

革

iconic

animal hide; leather — Depicts ornamental leather hanging from a person's arm.

革

iconic

animal hide; leather — Depicts ornamental leather hanging from a person's arm.

Through the ages

Bronze script

Seal script

Traditional script

Cursive script

Appears in

Characters that use 无 as a component, most common first.

抚fǔto pat 芜wúweeds 妩wǔcharming