Chinese character 负

The surrounding word selects the sense. In traditional Chinese writing, the corresponding form is 負.

Writing strips from China's Qin dynasty and seal script, an early Chinese writing style, preserve old forms of 負. The old Chinese dictionary 說文解字 describes its parts as a person guarding money made from shells, linking the character to an unpaid loan; this is an interpretation, not proof of its original purpose. The Han-era math text 九章算術 uses 正負術 for positive and negative quantities.