Where does “無用” come from?

無用 (Japanese) comes from Japanese 用, from Middle Chinese 用.

無用 (Japanese): uselessness; needlessness; being prohibited

Definitions

  1. uselessness; needlessness; being prohibited

Ancestry of “無用”, step by step

無用 traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 用

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese用use; a task, business, an errand; for the use of,...
2Middle Chinese用—

via Japanese 無

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese無nothing, nothingness; mu; the null set: neither...
Every word from Middle Chinese 用 →Every word from Japanese 用 →