漢字Kanji · in Action & Movement
飲: drink, smoke
Also: take
欠 carries the meaning · 飠 carries meaning and sound
Oracle bone · Shang Bronze · Zhou Today
Oracle bone and bronze: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
インin · on'yomi · in compounds
- 飲食店いんしょくてんrestaurant
- 飲酒運転いんしゅうんてんdrunk driving
- 飲料水いんりょうすいdrinking water
のむnomu · kun'yomi · on its own
- 飲むのむdrink
-のみ-nomi · kun'yomi
- 飲み屋のみやbar
- 飲み物のみものbeverage
Also read オン, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Ideogrammic compound (會意)酉 bottle (of alcoholic beverages) + 人 person + 口 mouth (occasionally with the tongue protruding)
In the oracle bone script, it was an ideogrammic compound (會意): 酉 (“bottle (of alcoholic beverages)”) + 人 (“person”) + 口 (“mouth (occasionally with the tongue protruding)”) – a person bending over a bottle to drink the alcoholic beverage. The droplets represented drops of the drink or saliva.
Source: Wiktionary, 飲 (rev. 92163286), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Food (食) + yawning (欠). Originally depicted a person opening their mouth (yawning) to take in "liquid food" or "drink" from a vessel.”
Connections
Also read オン
9 kanji share this on'yomiEasy to confuse
The difference, side by sideIn ChineseSimplified 饮 · traditional, as in Japanese · yǐn
Japan keeps the traditional form 飲; mainland China simplifies it to 饮.
- Simplified
- 饮 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 飲 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin yǐn most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.