昧 (mèi): to conceal

Meanings

1 to conceal
2 to hide (esp. the truth)
3 to act against (one's conscience)
4 dim; obscure; ignorant

Characters

昧

mèi

to conceal; dim; ignorant

Examples

HSK 7-9

请你不要昧着良心说话。

Qǐng nǐ bùyào mèi zhe liángxīn shuōhuà.

Please don't speak against your conscience.

HSK 7-9

他不肯昧着事实。

Tā bùkěn mèi zhe shìshí.

He refuses to suppress the facts.

Tips

memory

The character is 日 (sun) + 未 (not yet) → sun has not yet risen → dark, dim, obscure. From this comes both the literal 'dim' (愚昧 yúmèi 'ignorant') and the figurative 'to keep in the dark' (昧着良心 'against one's conscience').

Components

radical

日 rì

sun; day

Left-side sun radical - a square enclosing a stroke, depicting the sun. Indexes 昧 in the light-and-dark family alongside 明 bright, 晚 evening, 暗 dark. Carries the meaning here as dim sunlight: 昧 originally named the half-light just before dawn, by extension the dimness of ignorance or willful blindness.

phonetic

未 wèi

not yet (here phonetic + semantic)

Right side 未 supplies the sound: wèi shifted to mèi via a regular w/m alternation. 未 also adds meaning - not yet, incomplete - which dovetails with 昧's sense: light not yet risen, knowledge not yet attained. Together the pair pictures 'sun not yet up', the dim half-light of pre-dawn, hence obscurity, ignorance.