不bù

不

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Simplified · Today

简体

Simplified Chinese

Modern simplified form (簡體). 不 (bù, "no/not") has remained virtually unchanged since ancient times — its original pictograph may have depicted a bird in flight or a person turning away, a gesture of refusal that the script captured with striking clarity. Now one of the most frequent negatives in Chinese, it appears in compounds like 不要 (don't want), 不会 (can't/won't), and 不但 (not only).

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Shuowen

Not. The character depicts a sprouting plant with a bulbous root reaching downward into the earth and a stem reaching upward; the horizontal line at the top represents the ground surface. Originally meaning "to sprout" or "to grow," this positive imagery was later abandoned when the character was borrowed phonetically to express negation, a meaning that eventually became its primary usage.

Pinyin

bù· HSK 1· Radical 一

不bù

Character evolution

Shuowen

Pinyin