无
wú · HSK 4
there is not
🚫 无 sounds like 'woo' — nothing's there, just an empty woo
无 means 'not have' or 'there is none'. The Mandarin reading wú rhymes with the English exclamation 'woo' — a hollow sound for a hollow concept. Common in 无聊 (bored = no interest) and 无法 (unable = no method).
无 — top 一 + 林-like middle + fire radical 灬 below
Originally a pictograph of a person dancing while holding ornaments or tassels, meaning 'to dance' — the ancestor of 舞. It was borrowed phonetically to write the negative 'not have / without,' and the dance meaning was reassigned to 舞 with an added foot element. The simplified form 无 comes from an ancient variant.