昧 (mèi): to conceal

Meanings

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

Characters

昧

mèi

to conceal; dim; ignorant

Examples

请你不要昧着良心说话。

Qǐng nǐ bùyào mèi zhe liángxīn shuōhuà.

Please don't speak against your conscience.

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.