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The character 魍 (wǎng) is a phono-semantic compound combining the radical 鬼 (guǐ), which indicates ghosts, spirits, or demons, with the phonetic 罔 (wǎng). Although 罔 originally depicted a net and later meant 'to deceive' or 'not,' in 魍 it serves only to indicate the sound. In practice, 魍 appears almost exclusively in the word 魍魉 (wǎngliǎng), a term from classical mythology for demons and sprites that were thought to inhabit mountains and rivers. This meaning, recorded in early texts, remains its only modern sense.
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