盍

盇

hé

去 + 皿

Definitions

hé variant of 盍[hé]

hé why not

Etymology

Pictograph of a lid (去) on top of a container (皿). Based on the original meaning "lid", now written as 蓋. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.

About

盍 (hé) combines 去 (qù) above 皿 (mǐn, "vessel"), originally depicting a lid placed on a container. Its original meaning "lid" is now written as 蓋. In classical Chinese, the character was phonetically borrowed to represent a contraction of the interrogative 何 ("why") and the negative 不 ("not"), yielding the meaning "why not" and serving as a rhetorical suggestion.