觅食
mì​shí

forage

觅 mì seek Simplified

To search for something with eyes 见 and hands 爫

Components

爫
爫 Meaning component
zhǎo hand, claw
见
见 Meaning component
jiàn, xiàn, jian see

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode

食 shí, shi eat

Depicts a mouth (亼) eating from a food vessel (皀).

Components

亼
亼 Iconic component
jí (upside-down mouth), to assemble

Depicts an upside-down mouth.

皀
皀 Iconic component
jí, bī, xiāng one grain

Depicts a food vessel.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 皀 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Oracle form
Oracle Bone ~1250-1000 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Spring and Autumn 771-476 BC
Bronze form
Bronze Mid Warring States ~300 BC
Seal form
Seal Warring States (Chu) 475-221 BC
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Qin 221-206 BC
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Regular Modern

Component uses

Meaning (4 of 11 verified)

餐饕飧飨饔餍餮養饜飬饗

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagartzyikmə-lək eat
ziHs-m-lək-s feed (v.)

說文解字

《說文》：“食，一米也。从皀，亼聲。或說亼皀也。”

Sources

Character origin
漢語多功能字庫季旭昇《說文新證》p.435-436
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)

覓 seek Traditional

To search for something with eyes 見 and hands 爫

Components

爫
爫 Meaning component
zhǎo hand, claw
見
見 Meaning component
jiàn, xiàn, jian see

Character Evolution

Bronze form
Bronze Early Western Zhou ~1000 BC
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld Chinese
Zhengzhangmeːɡ
Unicodemek

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Zhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica