Sinograph Addenda · Signs

不not · bù · not — the plain negation

not

Where it comes from

Rank two. The received account sees a calyx under its stem — whatever the picture was, the negation borrowed it early and never gave it back. Taught in the busiest-words chapter.

How to remember it

A flower that never opens: not. Everything classical prose denies, it denies with these four strokes.

In the wild