糜 (mí) · rice gruel; congee

Meanings

1 rice gruel; congee
2 rotten; festering
3 to waste; to fritter away (money)

Characters

糜

mí

rice gruel; rotten; to waste

Examples

HSK 6

他生病了，只能喝些糜粥养身。

Tā shēngbìng le, zhǐ néng hē xiē mí zhōu yǎng shēn.

He was sick and could only drink some rice gruel to nourish himself.

HSK 7-9

何不食肉糜形容脱离现实的人。

Hé bù shí ròu mí xíngróng tuōlí xiànshí de rén.

'Why don't they eat meat porridge?' describes someone out of touch with reality.

Tips

history

The line 何不食肉糜 ('why don't they eat meat porridge?') is attributed to Emperor Hui of Jin (晋惠帝), who reportedly asked this when told the people were starving. It became shorthand for being blind to ordinary hardship, much like 'let them eat cake'.

register

Read mí for the porridge, rotten and waste senses (糜烂 festering, 肉糜 minced meat). Read méi only in 糜子, the grain broomcorn millet. The tone-and-vowel switch is the only spoken cue between the two.

Components

radical

米 mǐ

rice; grain

Bottom rice radical, six strokes picturing grains scattered around a central axis. It indexes 糜 in the grain-and-food family with 粥 congee, 粉 powder, 粒 kernel. The radical does the precise work here: this is what rice becomes when boiled to a thin paste.

phonetic

麻 má

hemp

Top-left 麻 supplies the sound má, drifting to mí through a regular vowel shift. 麻 itself pictures hemp fibres stripped under a shelter. The same phonetic powers 摩 rub, 磨 grind, 魔 demon. The 'grind to pulp' image of 磨 echoes porridge cooked until soft.