What does 没 mean in Chinese?

没 is a Chinese character with the radical 氵.

How do you write 没?

没 is written with 7 strokes, starting from the 氵 (water) radical and following standard Chinese stroke order (top to bottom, left to right). See the interactive stroke-order tool for the full animation.

What is the radical of 没?

The radical of 没 is 氵 (water, Kangxi radical #85). Other common HSK characters using the same radical include 法, 海, 洗, 河.

How many strokes does 没 have?

The Chinese character 没 has 7 strokes.

What HSK level is 没?

On the new HSK exam syllabus, 没 is a character to recognise at HSK 1 and to write by hand at HSK 2 (the handwriting list HSK 1 and 2 share).

没: Chinese Character Details

没

HSK 1 character 7 strokes Radical: 氵 (water)

Quick Answer

没 is a Chinese character with 7 strokes, radical 氵 (water), HSK 1 on the new exam.

Full dictionary entry for 没 →Animated stroke-order for 没 →

Etymology

Oracle-bone origin

没 is not found in oracle bone script and emerges as a phono-semantic compound in later scripts. The left side 氵 (water) is semantic and the right side was originally 殳, a hand grasping an object, together depicting something sinking under water or a hand disappearing beneath the surface. The core image is submersion and disappearance.

Form evolution

In bronze and seal script the right component showed a hand 又 reaching into or under a swirl representing water or a whirlpool. Clerical script regularised the right side into the modern 殳-like shape and fixed the water radical as 氵. The kaishu form 没 has remained stable; it is identical in traditional and simplified writing.

How the meaning evolved

The original meaning was to sink or submerge, as in drowning or a ship going under, preserved in 沉没 (to sink) and 淹没 (to flood, submerge). From submersion it extended to disappear, perish, and then to confiscate property (making it vanish from an owner). The reading méi for negation (没有, 'not have') is a much later colloquial development, likely from the sense of something being lost or gone.

Cultural note

The two readings split cleanly by register: mò keeps the classical submerge sense (沉没, 没收), while méi is the everyday negator learners meet first. The idiom 神出鬼没 ('appearing like a spirit, vanishing like a ghost') still uses the older mò reading for its disappearance sense.