fǒu, pǐ
not
Originally the same character as 不. Distinguishing component 口 was added later to the character when it took on the meaning "not". 不 represents the sound.
Components
Evolution

Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD)Regular script
ModernComponent uses
Meaning component in 1 character (1 verified)
Historical pronunciation
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*pəʔ | pjuwX | fǒu | not |
Statistics
HSK level 3
Appears in 72.4812% of movies
509th most common character in movies
620th most common character in books
Miscellaneous
Strokes | 7 |
Unicode | U+5426 |
Shuowen | “否,不也。从口,从不,不亦聲。” |
Sources
李学勤《字源》p.94-95
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