How to Write 瘼 (mò) — Meaning “sickness or suffering of the people”

Imagine the people (民) are all lying sick in bed (疒), and there is "no" (莫) way to escape their suffering. The sound part 莫 looks like a bed with a blanket—just picture the blanket covering everyone's pain.

Write the radical 疒 first as three strokes: dot, horizontal leftwards, then a left-falling stroke. The right part 莫 has a typical grass-top (艹) with four strokes, then a horizontal, a vertical at the bottom, and a large 大. A common mistake is making the middle 日 in 莫 too wide—keep it narrow to balance the left radical.

瘼 specifically refers to the suffering of the people as a whole, not a physical illness. 痰 means phlegm or mucus (a bodily fluid), and 痱 means heat rash or prickly heat (a skin condition). Visually, 瘼 has 莫 on the right, while 痰 has 炎 (two fires) and 痱 has 非 (not).

瘼 is rarely used in daily conversation today; it appears in formal, literary, or classical contexts, especially in phrases like 民瘼 (people's suffering) and 察民瘼 (observe people's hardships). It conveys a ruler's duty to care for the populace, reflecting a traditional Confucian value of benevolent governance.

Common words containing 瘼 include: 民瘼 (mín mò) — people's suffering / hardships; 察民瘼 (chá mín mò) — To observe the hardships of the people.; 恤民瘼 (xù mín mò) — to care for the people's suffering.