吸食

Mandarin · pinyin xī shí

Meanings

  1. (of an insect) to drink (nectar, sap, blood etc)
  2. (of a person) to take (a narcotic drug)
  3. to drink through a straw
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Characters in this entry

吸
xī · inhale, suck in; absorb; attract
食
shí · eat; meal; food; Kangxi radical 184
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · xi1 shi2

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Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

kap1 sik6

Cantonese word readings for 吸食. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

verb

  1. to suck; to take in; to use (illicit drugs); to smoke

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

吸食 · xi1 shi2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 20,745
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record吸食 吸食 [xi1 shi2] /(of an insect) to drink (nectar, sap, blood etc)/(of a person) to take (a narcotic drug)/to drink through a straw/