About
The character 莫 is structurally composed of the sun 日 enclosed between two layers of grass 艹, a configuration that visually represents the sun setting into vegetation and originally conveyed the specific temporal meaning of "dusk" or "evening". This concrete meaning became abstracted over time as the character was borrowed for its phonetic value to serve grammatical functions, evolving into a negative indefinite pronoun equivalent to "no one" or "nothing" and an adverb of prohibition meaning "do not". The semantic vacancy left by this phonetic loan was later filled by the creation of the character 暮, which incorporates an additional 日 component to explicitly denote the original concept of dusk, thereby allowing 莫 to solidify its role primarily within the realm of negation in the literary language.
Etymology Hide
Example Sentences Hide
莫要在这里大声喧哗。
他脸上露出了莫名的笑容。
这对我而言是莫大的荣幸。
最大的快乐莫过于家人的陪伴。
他迟迟未归，莫非是遇到了麻烦？
你切莫忘记我们之间的约定。
他此话一出，众人皆是莫敢出声。
莫斯科的冬天寒冷而漫长。