What 不 means
不 negates what follows it. In Mandarin, 不好 means “not good”; 不去 means “not go.” Japanese uses 不 in words expressing negation too. Older Chinese negatives 弗, 毋, 勿, and 非 are not interchangeable spellings of 不.
不 evolved through earlier forms, including oracle-bone writing—inscriptions on animal bones and shells. Its original picture is disputed: a sprouting seed or a flower’s calyx, the outer parts enclosing its bud. Neither is its literal meaning in Chinese today.
Is 不 pronounced bù or bú?
Both: bù becomes bú before a fourth-tone syllable. That is a syllable with a falling pitch, such as shì in 不是. The pronunciation changes; the spelling stays 不.
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- bu · bù · bú · Chinese not · Chinese no
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- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
Windows
HTML
不CSS
\4E0DCodes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
不
HTML hex
不
CSS content
content: "\4E0D";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E4%B8%8D
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.