méi

rice gruel

Phonosemantic compound. represents the meaning and represents the sound.

Components

Meaning component
rice
Sound component
má, ma hemp

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-SagartmjeC.m(r)ajrice gruel; destroy, crush
Zhengzhangmral
Unicodemyɛ

說文解字

糝也。从米麻聲。

Sources

Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-SagartZhengzhang Shangfang
Historical images
Academia Sinica