无辜 (wú gū) — innocent; not guilty; (noun) innocence

Definition

无辜 (wú gū) means 'innocent / not guilty' — typically about someone wrongly accused or harmed (a legal or factual sense). 天真 describes a pure, naive nature (especially a child), not guilt or innocence in a legal sense.

adjective

innocentnot guilty

noun

innocence

Examples

无辜。
Fǎ lǜ huì bǎo hù wú gū de rén.
The law protects innocent people.
无辜。
Tā jiān chí zì jǐ shì wú gū de.
He insists that he is innocent.
无辜。
Zhàn zhēng shāng hài le xǔ duō wú gū.
War harmed many innocent people.

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

动宾dòngbīnVerb + object

An action followed by what it acts on, fused into one word.

无wúhave not

辜gūguilt

无 means have not and 辜 means guilt, so the sense is without guilt.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 無; 无 is its simplified writing.

For the simplified 无, the story is about 無. 無 drew a person dancing with ox tails held in both hands to pray for rain, then was borrowed for 'have no', so the picture does not explain that meaning.

Open 无 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

古辛辜

Meaning part形符xíngfú

辛辛xīn

Sound part声符shēngfú

古

古gǔ辜gū

Same sound today

辜 pairs 古 as the sound part with 辛 as the meaning part.

Appears in

HSK 3.0 Level 7-9 Law & Justice 2000 Most Frequent Chinese Words 3000 Most Frequent Chinese Words 5000 Most Frequent Chinese Words