Chinese Character Wiki
勿

wù

must not

Original meaning: 

cut throat

Depicts a knife (刀) cutting with drops of blood coming out, based on the original meaning "cut throat", now written as 刎. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components
刀 iconic component

刀  Iconic component

dāo

  

knife

◎ iconic component

◎  Iconic component

  

characterless component

Depicts drops of blood.

Evolution

勿 Oracle script (~1250-1000 BC)

Oracle script

(~1250-1000 BC)
勿 Bronze script Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)

Bronze script

Early Western Zhou (~1000 BC)
勿 Seal script Shuowen (~100 AD)

Seal script

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

Clerical script

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

Regular script

Modern
Definitions

勿  

wù

must not, do not; without, never; do not

Most common words with 勿
Freq.
Word
Meaning

勿

do not

宁缺勿滥

same as 寧缺毋濫|宁缺毋滥[nìng​quē​wú​làn]

姑置勿论

to put something aside for the time being (idiom)

Component uses

Sound component in 7 characters (3 verified)

物 忽 刎 吻 笏 囫 芴

Historical pronunciation

Old Chinese

Middle Chinese

Pinyin

Gloss

*mut

mjut

wù

don't

*mut

mjut

wù

not ... it


Statistics

Not found in HSK word list

Appears in 3.7482% of movies

2681st most common character in movies

2563rd most common character in books

Miscellaneous

Strokes

4

Unicode

U+52FF

Shuowen

“勿，州里所建旗。象其柄，有三游。雜帛，幅半異。所以趣民，故遽稱勿勿。，勿或从。”


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