饿

Etymology & Components

The Chinese character 饿 (è) for "hungry" is composed of two parts: the radical 食 (shí), which indicates that the character is related to food, and the phonetic component 我 (wǒ), which provides a hint to its pronunciation. The original form of 饿 was 我, which was later simplified to its current form. The character 我 originally meant "to eat", and it is still used in this sense in some Chinese dialects. Over time, the meaning of 我 evolved to "hungry", and it is now the most common way to express this concept in Chinese. The character 饿 is also used in some other contexts, such as in the phrase 饿狼 (è láng), which means "hungry wolf".