Food Radical (饣) — Characters, Meaning and Practice Worksheet
饣 is the food radical. It appears in 8 of the most common Chinese characters — these 8 are the ones worth learning first, and the worksheet below gives every one of them a pinyin header, a stroke-by-stroke model and blank Tianzige grids to copy into.
Free · No sign-up · US Letter PDF
What does 饣 mean?
Food radical · 食 shí · 9 strokes · food; to eat
As a radical it is called 食字旁 (shí zì páng).
It usually appears on the left (饣), or at the bottom. The Origin column below shows what each character's parts do — many take their meaning from the radical, some take their sound from the other half.
食 itself: A dish of food 良 with a lid on top 人
8 common characters with 饣
Ranked by how often they appear in real written Chinese. Every character links to its own page with a stroke-order animation and example words.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 饭 | fàn | food, meal | 反 supplies the sound |
| 馆 | guǎn | [house for business or public service such as tea house, hotel, library, museum or embassy] hall, house | A public 官 building where food 饣 is served; 官 also provides the pronunciation |
| 餐 | cān | meal; to eat; classifier for meals | food |
| 饮 | yǐn | drink | 欠 supplies the sound |
| 饱 | bǎo | full | 包 supplies the sound |
| 饰 | shì | decoration; ornament; to decorate; to adorn; to hide; to conceal (a fa… | 饣 supplies the sound |
| 饿 | è | be hungry | To want 我 food 饣; 我 also provides the pronunciation |
| 饼 | bǐng | round flat cake; cookie; cake; pastry; CL:张 | 并 supplies the sound |
Related Radicals
Create Your Own Chinese Worksheet
The download above is fixed; the generator is not. Turn any character list, sentence or textbook section into a printable worksheet — grid style, paper size and header are yours to pick.