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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

菜

cài
vegetable; greens (Classifier: 棵 m; 根 m; 條／条 c; 樖 c)
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 2
  • radical 艸
  • 12 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *sʰɯːs): semantic 艹 (“grass; plant”) + phonetic 采 (OC *sʰɯːʔ).

From 采 (OC *sʰɯːʔ, “to gather; to pluck”) + nominalizing *-s, literally “what is gathered or plucked” (Sagart, 1999; Schuessler, 2007). See 采 for more.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese艸 “grass”
  • soundChinese采 “to pick; to pluck; to gather; to collect”
    • componentChinese爪 “claw (of animal, bird); talon; paw; nail”
    • componentChinese果 “fruit”
    • componentChinese木 “tree; woody plant”

Words built on it: 蔬菜, 白菜

Meanings

character
  1. vegetable; greens (Classifier: 棵 m; 根 m; 條／条 c; 樖 c)
  2. brassica crop
  3. dish; course (Classifier: 盤／盘 m; 道 m; 味 m)
  4. cuisine; (type of) food
  5. grocery
  6. (one's) type; cup of tea(Classifier: 條／条 c)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

菜：艸之可食者。从艸采聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 蔬類的總稱。 例：白菜、果菜、蔬菜
  2. 餚饌的總稱。 例：湘菜、川菜、素菜
  3. 差勁的、不出色。 例：菜鳥

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 菜 was written 字形演變

  1. 菜 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 菜 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 菜 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  4. 菜 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 菜