饲
Character Story & Explanation
饲 is used almost exclusively in technical, agricultural, or industrial contexts—not daily conversation. You’ll find it in official documents (e.g., Ministry of Agriculture reports), livestock feed packaging (配合饲料), and phrases like 饲料安全 (feed safety). It appears in the classical text *Qimin Yaoshu* (c. 535 CE), China’s earliest comprehensive agricultural manual, which details how to 饲猪 (raise pigs) using fermented grain. No common idioms feature 饲; it’s too specialized.
The character evolved from seal script: the left side 饣 is a standardized form of 食 (food), while the right 司 was borrowed for sound and meaning—'to administer'. There’s no pictographic sun/moon/tree origin; it’s a phono-semantic compound documented in Shuōwén Jiězì (100 CE) as 'to provide food for rearing.'
As a linguistic detective, I begin at the scene: the character 饲 appears in early clerical script (Lishu) during the Han dynasty—not in oracle bone or bronze inscriptions. Its left side, 饣 (the food radical), immediately signals connection to nourishment and sustenance. The right component, 司 (sī), originally meant 'to manage' or 'to oversee'—a semantic clue that this isn’t just feeding, but *systematic provision* for growth.
By the Tang and Song dynasties, 饲 had solidified as a transitive verb meaning 'to raise (livestock, fish, silkworms)'—always implying human-directed care over time. Unlike generic verbs like 吃 (to eat) or 喂 (to feed), 饲 carries institutional weight: it appears in agricultural manuals, imperial edicts on sericulture, and Song-era fish-farming treatises. This is not casual feeding—it’s husbandry as labor and responsibility.
The modern simplification preserved its core logic: 8 strokes, with the food radical anchoring meaning and 司 lending administrative nuance. Even today, when you see 饲 in a government bulletin about aquaculture subsidies or a feed mill’s product label, you’re witnessing continuity—not ancient mysticism, but 2,000 years of documented agrarian practice encoded in ink and intent.
Example Sentences
Common Compounds
Similar Characters — Don't Mix These Up
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