黍 (shǔ): broomcorn millet (Panicum milia…

Meanings

1 broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum); glutinous millet
2 (in northern dialect) yellow millet, 'huangmi' 黄米

Characters

禾 (grain stalk) over 水 (suggesting the sticky / wet quality of glutinous millet) — semantic hint at a grain that becomes glutinous when cooked.

Examples

北方人喜欢用黍米做年糕。

Běifāng rén xǐhuān yòng shǔ mǐ zuò niángāo.

Northerners like making New Year cake from glutinous millet.

黍稷重穋是古代主要的粮食。

Shǔ jì zhòng lù shì gǔdài zhǔyào de liángshí.

Millet varieties were the main grains of antiquity.

Tips

culture

黍 is one of the 五谷 (Five Grains) of classical China — alongside 稷 (foxtail millet), 麦 (wheat), 菽 (beans), and 稻 (rice). The 《诗经》 mentions 黍 dozens of times. Modern Chinese commonly calls it 黄米 (yellow millet) and uses it for sticky rice cakes, especially during festivals.

history

Archaeological remains of 黍 in north China date to over 8,000 years ago — predating both rice and wheat as a Chinese staple. Its Latin name Panicum miliaceum reflects this — the cereal that fed early agricultural villages along the Yellow River.

Components

semantic

禾 hé

grain stalk; cereal plant

Top 禾 — pictograph of a ripe grain stalk with the head bent over. It contributes the cereal meaning: 黍 is a specific kind of millet, so the grain plant sits above and waters it. 黍 is itself a Kangxi radical (#202), so 禾 here is a semantic helper rather than the indexing element.

semantic

人 rén

person (small middle marker)

Small 人 tucked under the grain — historically the contracted form of 入 (enter) or a stylised handful, marking the human action of harvesting and processing the millet. A tiny middle layer that bridges the grain plant above and the water-element below into one cooking scene.

semantic

氺 shuǐ

water (vertical-form variant)

Bottom 氺 — the vertical bottom form of 水 (water), used when water sits underneath rather than to the left. It contributes the wet, fermenting quality: glutinous broomcorn millet was the classical grain for brewing wine, so the picture is grain + person + water = the millet being soaked and fermented.

Radical

Millet Kangxi #202

An indexing radical for glutinous millet and a few sticky-grain derivatives. Compounds are rare and largely archaic: 黎 (multitudes / dark; originally millet-related), 黏 (sticky), 黐 (birdlime). The character itself preserves a stalk of grain (禾) above what looks like water — a visual cue for the millet's distinctive stickiness when cooked.