就餐
jiù cān · HSK 7
to dine
🍽️ 就 (go to) + 餐 (meal) = go to a meal = to dine
餐 contains 食 (food/eat) at its base, the classic eat radical. 就 means to go toward or undertake something, so 就餐 is literally going to take a meal — to dine.
就 — 京 (capital) + 尤 (especially)
Originally a compound suggesting going to a high place (京 depicts a tall building) to settle or accomplish something. Over time the meaning shifted from 'approach a high place' to 'go to,' then broadened to 'accomplish,' and finally to the modern grammatical senses 'then,' 'just,' or 'precisely.'
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.'