弗
fú

not

Original meaning: straighten

Depicts rope wrapped around two pieces of wood to keep them straight. Based on the original meaning "straighten". The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts two pieces of wood.

◎
◎ Iconic component
characterless component

Depicts a rope binding the pieces of wood together to keep them straight.


Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (5 of 15 verified)

费佛拂沸狒氟砩怫茀費绋艴髴紼彿

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartpjutp[u]t (negation)
pjutput gust of wind
pjutput writing brush (pron. in Yān 燕, ap. Shuōwén, E. Hàn)

說文解字

《說文》：“弗，撟也。从丿，从，从韋省。”

Sources

Character origin
季旭昇《說文新證》p.856-857李学勤《字源》p.1104
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)