饱 from HSK Level 2 Vocabulary List

The Chinese character 饱 (bǎo) for "full" or "satiated" is composed of two parts: the radical 食 (shí), which indicates that the character is related to food, and the phonetic component 飽 (bǎo), which gives the character its pronunciation.The original form of the character 饱 was 飽, which was first used in oracle bone script during the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC). In this early form, the character was composed of the radical 食 and the phonetic component 飽, which was a pictograph of a person with a full belly.Over time, the character 飽 underwent several changes in its form. In the seal script of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BC), the character was simplified to its current form, 饱. In this form, the radical 食 is still present, but the phonetic component 飽 has been replaced by a simplified version that is no longer a pictograph.The character 饱 is used in a variety of words and phrases related to food and eating. For example, it is used in the word 饱饭 (bǎofàn), which means "a full meal," and the phrase 吃饱了 (chībǎole), which means "to be full." The character is also used in some figurative expressions, such as 眼饱 (yǎnbǎo), which means "to feast one's eyes," and 心满意足 (xīnmǎnyìzú), which means "to be completely satisfied."