饥 (jī) is a Chinese character meaning “hungry”. It is written from 饣 (food radical (simplified form of 食)) and 几 (small table; how many), side by side, and takes 5 strokes.
Build the character for “hungry”
Four steps: break it apart, build it, recall it, use it in a word.
StartLearn this character
Structure
饣 + 几
Left–right structure
Structure from: 说文解字（飢：从食几聲）
Memory aid
The food radical 饣 on the left, and 几 (jǐ) on the right giving the sound. Food is right there beside you — but only the sound of it: you are hungry.
This is a memory aid, not the historical origin.
Stroke order
5 strokes
In real words
- 饥饿jī èhunger; starving饥 = jī
Go deeper
All readings
hungry
hungry; famished; famine, crop failure
肚子空、想吃东西；也指年成不好、粮食短缺。 — studyhanzi 编写
Words with this reading
- 饥饿jī èhunger; starving饥 = jī
Sound component
几 family tone diff
Stroke data: hanzi-writer-data (Arphic Public License) · licenses & attributions
Questions people ask about this character
What does 饥 mean?
饥 (jī) means hungry; famished; famine, crop failure.
How do you pronounce 饥?
It is pronounced jī.
What parts is 饥 made of?
饣 (food radical (simplified form of 食)) and 几 (small table; how many), side by side. The recorded source is: 说文解字（飢：从食几聲）. Components are the building blocks of the shape; the radical used for dictionary lookup is a separate thing.
How many strokes does 饥 have?
5. You can watch the stroke order on this page, or trace it yourself.
What is the radical of 饥?
饣. The radical is how the character is filed in a dictionary — it is not the whole story of how the character is built.
What words use 饥?
Common ones are 饥饿. The reading of 饥 is not the same in every word, so each word on this page shows which reading applies.