noun #60,352

Meanings

  1. 1 fat hen; goosefoot (Chenopodium album), an edible wild weed

Examples

Huāngnián lǐ, qióngrén kào lí huò chōngjī.
In hard times the poor lived on goosefoot and bean leaves.
Límài shì lí kē zhíwù de zhǒngzi.
Quinoa is the seed of a plant related to goosefoot.

Tips

history
An old famine food: classical texts pair it as 藜藿 ('goosefoot and bean leaves') to mean the plain fare of the poor. Its tough old stalks were even made into walking sticks. Modern readers also meet it in 藜麦 ('quinoa').

Components

radical
cǎo
grass; plant
The grass radical on top, compressed form of . It marks the character as a plant — here an edible wild herb.
phonetic
numerous; dark
Supplies the sound exactly: standalone reads lí, matching this character. It is purely phonetic, contributing no meaning to the plant.

Stroke Order