炒饭
chǎo fàn · HSK 3
fried rice
🍚 炒饭 = stir-fry + rice
炒 (chǎo) means to stir-fry; 饭 (fàn) means cooked rice. Together: rice tossed in a hot wok. The 火 (fire) radical in 炒 marks it as a cooking-with-heat verb.
炒 — fire radical 火 + 少 (few/phonetic)
炒 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The fire radical 火 on the left signals cooking with heat, while 少 (shǎo) on the right hints at the pronunciation. It originally described stir-frying small amounts of food quickly over a flame, the meaning it still carries today.
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.