Definitions
barley
Etymology
About
The character 麰 is a phono-semantic compound specifically created to denote barley, a historically vital cereal grain. Its left side is the semantic radical 麥 (mài), which refers to wheat or similar cereals and places the character in the agricultural lexicon. The right side is the phonetic component 牟 (móu), which provides the pronunciation but no independent meaning. Historically, 麰 was used in agronomic texts and poetry to distinguish barley from other grains, though the term later evolved into bi-syllabic forms, restricting this single-character version to classical and specialized botanical contexts.
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