Origin

The character 忘 combines heart or mind (心) at the bottom with a sound hint (亡) at the top. The bottom component signals that this character relates to mental or emotional states. The top component 亡 indicates the pronunciation but does not directly contribute meaning — it comes from an older Chinese word meaning "to die" or "to perish," and over time this pairing with heart came to express the idea of the mind letting something slip away, which is how we forget.