膳 (shàn) · meal, food

Meanings

1 meal
2 food

Characters

膳

shàn

meal; food (formal)

Examples

HSK 3

请用膳。

Qǐng yòng shàn.

Please have your meal. (formal invitation to eat)

HSK 6

御膳房是皇帝用餐的地方。

Yùshànfáng shì huángdì yòngcān de dìfāng.

The imperial kitchen was where the emperor had his meals.

Tips

register

膳 is a formal/literary term for a meal. In modern usage it mostly appears in compound words: 膳食 (diet/meals), 用膳 (to have a meal, formal), 御膳 (imperial meals). Everyday speech uses 饭 or 餐.

Components

radical

⺼ ròu

flesh; meat

⺼ is the flesh-meat radical (left-side form of 肉). It anchors 膳 to the food-and-body family: a 膳 is a prepared meal, and the meat radical signals the cooked-flesh end of the dining table. Compare 膏, 脯, 腊 - all meat-radical food words.

phonetic

善 shàn

good; virtuous

善 supplies the sound, unchanged. There's a strong semantic echo too - a 膳 traditionally meant the carefully prepared, virtuous meals offered to elders or emperors (御膳, 用膳). Good food, good intent. Same phonetic gives 缮 (mend), 鳝 (eel), 擅 (skilled at).