He cut mallow and bean leaves with a scythe at his waist.
Tips
history
Not used in modern spoken Chinese; it appears in classical poetry and the bound term 刈除 (to cut away). It is the original graph behind the harvest sense later carried by 刈's cognates; the body 乂 also supplies the phonetic in 艾.
register
Literary; today people say 割 for cutting grass or grain.
On the left, 乂 is the ancient picture of crossed cutting blades and supplies both the yì sound and the cutting idea; it heads the phonetic series including 艾.
