NinchaneseThe Chinese character 食
And its meaning component form
(trad: 飠)
shí
- food radical
- “to eat” radical
The Chinese meaning component 饣comes from the word 食 shí, which means to eat or food.
饣is a meaning character component
饣 is used as a meaning component in Chinese characters. You’ll find 饣 in characters and words related directly or indirectly to eating or food.
These characters all contain 饣 and have a direct link with eating:
Food-related words in Chinese that contain the meaning component 饣
These characters all contain the meaning component 饣 and are all yummy food items:
The character component 饣in words that aren’t directly related to food
The meaning component 饣can be found in Chinese characters and words that are related to food or eating, which makes sense. You can also find the meaning component 饣 in characters that are less directly related to food or eating.
That’s either because their meaning has evolved over time, or because the characters’ meanings used to involve mountains before and no longer does. Sometimes 饣is also the phonetic component in a character, so always ask yourself when you run into it: does it indicate something that has to do with food here?
Most of the time it will, but sometimes, just so you know, it won’t. Mandarin is a living language, so that’s not surprising!
Exceptions
You can find the character component 饣used in words indirectly related to food or unrelated to food, such as:
饶 ráo: rich, abundant, exuberant
饰 shì: decoration, ornament
You’ll also find the meaning component 饣for food in many other Chinese characters: Browse the full list here.
All 80,000+ Chinese characters share the same character components. Chinese character components are therefore essential for Chinese learners: they are the building blocks of Chinese. Chinese character components help tremendously with understanding a character: they provide information on its meaning or on its pronunciation. In short, knowing character components will help you analyse, learn and remember each Chinese character much better.
Join us on Ninchanese as we teach you everything about the Chinese character components you need to know, little by little.