First opened Sunday, April 8, 2007
無
ぶ
Pitch accent: We don't have the data for this section. No accent list gives this spelling and reading, or the two we check against disagree.
un-, non- (prefix)
Bu, “non-”, is from Middle Chinese 無, the kan'on reading, so likely a later borrowing.
Taken apart
No breakdown is shown for this word: Wiktionary's text for it doesn't give a split that spells the word and joins to its reading, and any other split would be a guess.
Written with 無
In a sentence
We don't have the data for this section. The pinned Tatoeba export has no sentence with a translation that uses this word and passes our filter.
What Wiktionary says
Quoted line by line from Wiktionary's Etymology section for this reading, taken from one dated dump so it can't change underneath us. Nothing below is paraphrased.
Not settled
Wiktionary itself hedges on part of this word's origin — those lines are marked below.
- Hedged“From Middle Chinese 無 (bu). The 漢音 (kan'on), so likely a later borrowing.”
Source: Wiktionary: 無 (dump of 2026-09-02), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Reading, meaning and part of speech from JMdict, and kanji readings from KANJIDIC2 (EDRDG).
Other readings of 無 on the same Wiktionary page
These describe other words written the same way, not ぶ. They are quoted for context: the parts, layer and processes of this word are not taken from them.
む
- “From Middle Chinese 無 (MC mju). The 呉音 (goon), so likely an earlier borrowing.”
What the labels mean
- 漢語 Sino-Japanese
- Words built from Chinese-derived morphemes — borrowed from Chinese or coined in Japan out of Chinese parts — read with on'yomi.
- Borrowing
- Taken over from another language.