晚饭
wǎn fàn · HSK 1
dinner
🍚🌙 晚 = late/evening + 饭 = cooked rice/meal
晚 (wǎn) means late or evening; 饭 (fàn) means cooked rice or a meal. Together: the evening meal — dinner. 饭 shows up in 早饭 (breakfast) and 午饭 (lunch) too, with 早/午/晚 marking the time of day.
晚 — sun 日 + 免 (avoid/phonetic)
晚 combines 日 (sun) as the meaning component with 免 as the phonetic. The sun element signals a time of day, while 免 hints at the pronunciation wǎn. Originally it referred to the late part of the day when the sun is setting, and from there extended to mean 'late' in a general sense.
饭 — food radical 飠/饣 + 反 fǎn (phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 饣 (simplified from 飠, 'eat/food') gives the meaning, while 反 on the right hints at the sound. Originally referring to cooked grain, it broadened to mean cooked rice and, by extension, a meal in general.