How to Write 稆 (lǚ) — Meaning “self-sown (grain); volunteer”

Imagine two mouths (吕, which looks like two stacked mouths) eating self-sown grain (禾). The picture of two hungry mouths happily finding volunteer rice helps link the sound lǚ to the meaning of self-sown grain.

Pay attention to the left radical 禾 — the last stroke is a dot, not a right-falling stroke, and the right part 吕 has two rectangular mouths with no gap between them. The overall width should be balanced: the left side is slightly narrower than the right side.

秋 (qiū, autumn) uses the radical 火 (fire) with 禾, and means "autumn" or "harvest season." 种 (zhǒng, seed/plant) has 禾 with 中 (zhōng) and means "to plant" or "species." Unlike both, 稆 specifically describes grain that grows wild or without human cultivation — it is not about a season or planting.

稆 is a relatively rare character, mainly used in agricultural contexts to describe volunteer plants — crops that grow from seeds left from a previous harvest. In everyday speech, you might hear it in terms like 稆生 (self-sown) or 稆稻 (volunteer rice). It is not common in HSK vocabulary but appears in farming discussions or botanical writing.

Common words containing 稆 include: 稆生 (lǚ shēng) — self-sown; growing wild; 稆谷 (lǚ gǔ) — self-sown grain; 稆稻 (lǚ dào) — volunteer rice; self-sown rice.