芝麻
zhī ma · HSK 7
sesame
🌰 both 芝 and 麻 wear the grass radical 艹, marking sesame as a seed-bearing plant
麻 on its own means hemp/flax, another oily-seed crop; pairing it with 芝 narrows it to sesame. The shared 艹 caps both characters, a steady cue that this is a tiny plant seed. Say zhi-ma and it rhymes loosely with the chant open-SESA-me.
麻 — shelter 广 + two 林 (hemp fibers)
Originally a pictograph of hemp fibers (林-like shape) being processed under a shelter (广), depicting the workshop where bast fibers were stripped and dried. The core meaning was 'hemp/cannabis plant,' later extended to 'numb' or 'tingling' from the sensation hemp can cause, and to 'rough' textures like hemp cloth.