炒菜
chǎo​cài

stir-fried dish

炒 chǎo fry

Phonosemantic compound. 火 represents the meaning and 少 represents the sound.

Components

火
火 Meaning component
huǒ fire
少
少 Sound component
shǎo, shao, shào few

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Late Spring and Autumn ~500 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttsrhaewX[tsʰ](ˤ)r[e]wʔ to stir-fry

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica

菜 cài vegetables

Phonosemantic compound. 艹 represents the meaning and 采 represents the sound.

Components

艹
艹 Meaning component
cao, cǎo grass

艹 is a component form of 艸.

采
采 Sound component
cǎi gather, pick

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Mid Western Zhou ~900 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagarttshojHs.r̥ˤəʔ-s vegetables

說文解字

艸之可食者。从艸采聲。

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)