不顾
búgù · HSK 5
ignore
🙈 不 (not) + 顾 (look after/regard) = not regard → disregard, ignore
不 negates; 顾 means to look back, attend to, or care about (as in 照顾 zhàogù 'take care of'). So 不顾 literally = not caring about → acting without regard for, ignoring.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
顾 — page 頁 + cliff 厃 (phonetic 雇)
顧 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 頁 (head) gives the meaning of turning the head to look back, while 雇 supplies the sound. The original sense was 'to turn and gaze,' which extended to 'consider, care for, attend to.' The simplified form 顾 keeps the same structure with 页.