CJK Unified Ideograph-993C

It marks provisions offered or supplied, including a live sacrificial animal.

An early textual trail appears in transmitted pre-Qin classics quoted by later dictionaries: officials present grain and fodder, rulers send grain during famine, and ritual texts distinguish living offerings from cooked ones. The purpose was practical and formal at once — feed guests, provision visitors, and mark a sacrificial offering.

As of 2026-09-14, the sources found give no secure oracle-bone or bronze attestation for this exact 食+氣 form; the defensible trail is the transmitted word and its early lexicographic explanation. 《說文解字》 records 氣 as the older form for fodder and grain given to guests, then treats 餼 as a 食 “food” variant. Later, 氣/气 became the everyday character for air, breath, and energy, while 餼 remained the form for provisions and live offerings; 饩 is its simplified counterpart.

Someone sent me 餼—what is it?

Read it as a classical or traditional-character reference to provisions.

If it stands alone, do not force a single modern translation. In a historical sentence it may be grain supplied as aid, a ration, or a live offering; compounds settle the choice. Classical-text readers can use the surrounding compound, while a modern reader who knows only 氣/气 may reach for the wrong sense. If the sender writes in simplified Chinese, the same character is written 饩.

The safest reply is to ask for the surrounding sentence if a message gives you only 餼. That is a decoding problem, not an emoji reaction.