套餐
tào cān · HSK 4
meal
🍱 套 = cover/set + 餐 = meal; a 'set-cover meal' bundle
套 means a cover, sheath, or set/bundle (think of one thing fitting over another); 餐 means meal. Together: a bundled meal — and by extension any packaged deal like a phone plan.
套 — big 大 + long 镸 (long hair)
套 combines 大 (big) over 镸 (long), suggesting something large and elongated that wraps or covers. The original sense was a covering or sheath that fits over something else, later extending to 'set,' 'cover,' or 'to slip over.' Modern uses like 一套 (a set) and 手套 (gloves) preserve this idea of an enclosing wrapper.
餐 — 歺 (bone fragment) + 又 (hand) + 食 (food)
Originally a phono-semantic compound showing a hand (又) taking food from bones (歺), with 食 (food) as the meaning component. The top portion 'cǎn' provides the sound, while 食 indicates the meaning of eating. Over time it came to mean 'meal' or 'to eat.'