莫
mòMò HSK7

do not

Original meaning: sunset

Depicts the sun (日) shining through vegetation (茻). Based on the original meaning "sunset", now written as 暮. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

Components

茻
茻 Iconic component
mǎng, mǔ vegetation, overgrown weeds
Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 茻 than it was in ancient scripts.
日
日 Iconic component
rì sun

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Late Western Zhou ~800 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 Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Wu) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Sound (4 of 23 verified)

模幕摸漠墓膜慕寞募暮摹蓦谟蟆馍镆貘嫫驀瘼糢謨饃

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartmakmˤak there is no X such that X …
makmˤak deliberate (v.) (loan)

說文解字

《說文》：“莫，日且冥也。从日在茻中。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)