菜 (cài): vegetable

Meanings

1 vegetable
2 dish (of food); cuisine

Characters

菜

cài

vegetable; dish

艹 (grass / plant) + 采 (to pick) — plants you pick to eat.

Examples

多吃菜。

Duō chī cài.

Eat more vegetables.

这个菜很好吃。

Zhège cài hěn hǎochī.

This dish is delicious.

你想吃什么菜？

Nǐ xiǎng chī shénme cài?

What dish would you like to eat?

Tips

usage

菜 means both vegetable (蔬菜) and dish / course (a prepared food item). 点菜 means to order food, 做菜 means to cook, and 菜单 means menu.

culture

China's four great cuisines 四大菜系: 川菜 (Sichuan, spicy), 鲁菜 (Shandong), 粤菜 (Cantonese), and 苏菜 (Jiangsu). Each has distinct flavors and techniques.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant (top radical)

Top grass radical (Kangxi #140 艸 in its 3-stroke compressed form) — the indexing radical. Anchors the original meaning: 菜 is anything edible grown from the ground — vegetables, greens, then by extension a dish made from them (一道菜 one dish). The radical groups 茶 (tea), 花 (flower), 草 (grass), 蔬 (vegetable), 药 (medicine).

phonetic

采 cǎi

to pick; gather; pluck

Bottom phonetic 采 — supplies the sound, shifting tone to cài. Beautifully self-reinforcing: 采 depicts a hand (爫) over a tree (木) and means to pick, gather — exactly what you do with vegetables. So phonetic + semantic both reinforce. Same phonetic in 彩 (colour), 睬 (heed), 踩 (step on).