埋没

• Pinyin: mái mò
• Hanzi breakdown: 埋 = 土 (earth) + 里 (inside); 没 = 水 (water) + 殳 (tool/strike) — to sink and submerge

Meaning

To bury under; to cause something or someone to be forgotten or overlooked. Often figuratively: failing to recognise or utilise talent, causing it to be wasted.

In figurative use, 埋没 carries a sense of injustice — a talented person being overlooked, a good idea unrecognised, or an achievement forgotten. Common in career development, historical assessment, and social criticism.

Examples

1. 大量优秀人才因体制原因被埋没，未能在最适合自己的岗位上发挥出应有的价值。 A great number of outstanding talents have been overlooked for institutional reasons, unable to realize their value in positions that suit them best.
2. 这批历史档案若不加以整理和数字化，迟早会因年久失修而彻底被埋没于历史尘埃之中。 If these historical archives aren’t organized and digitized, sooner or later they’ll fall into disrepair and be completely buried in the dust of history.
3. 她不甘心让自己的才华就此埋没，毅然辞去稳定的工作，转而追求梦想中的艺术事业。 She refused to let her talent go to waste, resigned from her stable job, and turned to pursue the artistic career she had always dreamed of.

Usage Guide

Context: talent management, history, social criticism, career

Tone: critical

Do Say

• 真正的教育体系应当善于发掘每位学生的独特潜能，而不是以统一标准埋没那些不符合主流评价体系的非凡才华。(A truly good education system should excel at uncovering each student's unique potential, rather than using uniform standards to bury talents that do not conform to mainstream evaluation criteria.)
• 历史上不乏才华长期被埋没的艺术家，他们的价值往往要到身后才得到社会的广泛认可。(History is full of artists whose talents were long overlooked; their value was often only widely recognised by society after their deaths.)

Don't Say

• 用埋没描述物理掩埋而不加语境说明 — while 埋没 can be used literally (buried under sand or rubble), its most powerful usage is figurative (talent or contributions being overlooked); purely literal use in literary contexts may confuse readers

Origin & History

埋 (to bury) + 没 (to submerge/disappear) — to be buried and lost from sight

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal