The story of 麥

wheat

麥 is composed of the variant of 來(to come) and 夊(walking slowly). 來 depicts a ear of grain, its original meaning is wheat, but 來 then generates the meaning of ‘coming here’, to avoid confusion, 夊(the picture of a foot) is added and create 麥 in order to represent the present meaning of 來. However, someone messes 來 and 麥 up, 來 is used to mean ‘coming here’, while 麥 is used to mean wheat, until now.