好吃
hǎochī · HSK 1
delicious
😋 好吃 = 好 (good) + 吃 (eat) — literally 'good-eat' = tasty
A transparent compound: 好 hǎo means good/well, 吃 chī means to eat. Together they describe food that is good to eat. The same pattern gives 好看 hǎokàn (good-looking) and 好听 hǎotīng (good-sounding).
好 — woman 女 + child 子
好 is an associative compound showing a woman 女 beside a child 子, depicting a mother with her baby. From this image of maternal affection it came to mean 'good, fine, pleasing.' The reading hǎo means 'good'; read hào it means 'to like.'
吃 — mouth 口 + beg 乞
A semantic-phonetic compound: 口 (mouth) gives the meaning 'to eat,' while 乞 (qǐ, 'to beg') hints at the sound. The original character for 'eat' was 喫; 吃 first meant 'to stutter' but was later adopted as the standard simplified form for 'to eat.'
hǎo chī · HSK 2
delicious
😋 好 = good + 吃 = eat → good-to-eat = delicious
好 (hǎo, good) is the woman 女 + child 子 radical pair meaning 'good'. 吃 (chī) means 'to eat', with the mouth radical 口 on the left. Together: literally 'good-eat', i.e. tasty.
好 — woman 女 + child 子
好 is an associative compound showing a woman 女 beside a child 子, depicting a mother with her baby. From this image of maternal affection it came to mean 'good, fine, pleasing.' The reading hǎo means 'good'; read hào it means 'to like.'
吃 — mouth 口 + beg 乞
A semantic-phonetic compound: 口 (mouth) gives the meaning 'to eat,' while 乞 (qǐ, 'to beg') hints at the sound. The original character for 'eat' was 喫; 吃 first meant 'to stutter' but was later adopted as the standard simplified form for 'to eat.'