米饭 (mǐ fàn) — (cooked) rice | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

米饭 is cooked rice served in a bowl — the food on your plate. 大米 is the dry uncooked grain you buy to cook.

noun

(cooked) rice

Measure word · 碗

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

饭fàncooked food

米 means rice and 饭 means cooked food, so the word names rice as a cooked meal.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

米 is a picture of rice kernels without husk, with the horizontal stroke as a bamboo sieve. It is unrelated to similar-looking grain characters.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 飯; 饭 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú

Sound part声符shēngfú

反

Same sound today

The traditional form 飯 combines 食 (food) with 反 for the sound; the simplified 饭 is a shorthand, so its parts are not the historical form.

Appears in