蜂蜜

fēng mì · HSK 7

honey

蜂蜜 — honey

🐝🍯 蜂 (bee) + 蜜 (honey/nectar) = bee's honey

蜂 means bee and 蜜 means honey or nectar, so 蜂蜜 is literally bee-honey. The 虫 radical in 蜂 marks it as an insect; 蜜 carries 虫 too, tying the sweet stuff back to its insect source.

蜜 — insect 虫 + 宓 (mì, phonetic)
蜜 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The 虫 component signals an insect (here, bees), while 宓 supplies the sound 'mì'. The character originally referred to honey produced by bees, and by extension came to mean sweetness.

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