Definitions

mǎng vast, expansive

Etymology phono-semantic

water

Semantic: Phonetic:

About

The character is a phono-semantic compound formed by the water radical on the left, which signals its connection to water, and the phonetic (mǎng) on the right, a character that originally means 'thick vegetation'. It is used to convey vastness or boundlessness, particularly of wide-open bodies of water such as oceans or vast lakes, and later came to poetically describe any limitless, immeasurable space. has no simplified variant and remains relatively common in literary and poetic contexts.