Amazing Chinese Characters (190) Eat - 食

The shell bone script of character Eat is

the top is a mouth, and the bottom is a utensils, which means that some one is eating food.

Other explanation is that the top is the lid of a pan, the bottom is rice in a utensil, which means that the food in a pot covered by a lid.

I don't know which one is better. We see many the triangle top for Mouth. However the bottom is more like pot, not utensils which was not used 3000+ years ago.

The bronze script of the character is

The small seal script of the character is

similar to the shell bone script, but less pictographic. The mouth touches the utensils, and the legs of utensils are not in the middle.

The clerical script for the character is

still a little bit similarity, but changed a lot.

Its song typeface is

食

Its Pinyin is Shi1.

食 original is Eat, but gradually, it means Food too, especially combined with other characters, such as 食物，食品，饮食，etc. When you learn more, you will understand those compound words.