wàng
verb HSK 1 #469

Meanings

  1. 1 to forget

Characters

Heart radical on the bottom — forgetting is a matter of the heart/mind

Examples

Wǒ wàng le tā de míngzi.
I forgot his name.
Bié wàng le dài sǎn.
Don't forget to bring an umbrella.

Tips

history
combines (to perish/lose) and (heart). When something is lost from your heart, you have forgotten it.

Components

radical
xīn
heart; mind
Bottom heart radical (Kangxi #61) in its full 4-stroke form — the indexing radical. Anchors the mental-state semantics: is what happens in the mind when something slips away (忘记 forget, 难忘 unforgettable, 忘恩负义 ungrateful). Same bottom-position in , , , — the deeper-thought family.
phonetic
wáng
lost; perish; gone
Top phonetic — supplies the sound, shifting tone to wàng. Beautifully self-reinforcing: itself means 'to lose, vanish, perish,' which doubles as semantic — the heart having lost something = forgotten. Same phonetic in (busy), (vast), (absurd), (gaze) — a productive cluster.

Stroke Order

wàng