麥 Radical 199 — wheat; barley, cereal grain
mài (fourth tone, falling)
wheat; barley, cereal grain
Radical 19911 strokes0 characters
Also written 麦 — the same radical in a different position inside the character.
Where the shape comes from
A wheat plant, its drooping head of grain at the top and roots reaching down at the bottom — built from 來, itself originally a picture of wheat that was borrowed early on for the abstract verb to come, leaving this fuller form to carry the plant’s own meaning once the borrowing had taken over the simpler shape. It names the grain directly in 麦子, wheat, and its simplified 麦 turns up, playfully repurposed for sound alone, in 麦当劳, McDonald’s.
characters filed under 麥
No published character on HSK Guide is filed under this radical yet. Character explorer.