jiāng
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 cowpea; long bean; yard-long bean (bound form, used in 豇豆)

Examples

Ròumò chǎo jiāngdòu shì yī dào jīngdiǎn de Chuāncài jiāchángcài.
Long beans stir-fried with minced pork is a classic Sichuan home dish.
Nǎinai zài yuànzi lǐ zhòng le yī pái jiāngdòu.
Grandma planted a row of long beans in the yard.
Suānjiāngdòu néng gěi chǎofàn zēngtiān yī zhǒng tèbié de suānwèi.
Pickled long beans add a special tang to fried rice.

Tips

usage
jiāng is a bound form — it appears only in 豇豆 and its derivatives. The bean itself (Vigna unguiculata, also called cowpea or yard-long bean) is a Chinese kitchen staple, especially in Sichuan and Hunan cooking. Common compounds: 酸豇豆 (pickled / sour long beans, a famous Sichuan condiment), 干煸豇豆 (dry-fried long beans). The pods routinely grow 30-60cm long, hence the English name 'yard-long.'
memory
Left (bean) + right (work, supplying the sound jiāng via the Old Chinese reading kong). One of the simplest phono-semantic legume names: bean-radical + sound-marker, no semantic puzzle.

Components

radical
dòu
bean; pulse
Left bean radical (Kangxi #151). Marks as a member of the legume family — same group as (pea) and (fermented soybean).
phonetic
gōng
work; labour; supplying the sound
Right phonetic — the gōng → jiāng shift is regular for an old velar initial. The same phonetic anchors (river), (pole), (carry on shoulder), (vat) — a tight phonetic family.

Stroke Order

jiāng