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The character 米 (mǐ): rice

A table of pale wood stands before an open window onto green rice paddies and a blue sky. At the left, a blue and white porcelain bowl heaped with steaming white rice, a pair of bamboo chopsticks laid across it, a few grains fallen on the table, and a vase holding bamboo stems. On the table at the right, the character 米 in dark brown: two short obliques splaying at the top, a horizontal bar, an upright stem crossing it, and two obliques running down from the crossing.
Pronunciation
mǐ
Strokes
6
Level
HSK 3
Radical
米
Made of
木丷

What it means

uncooked rice; meter (unit of length); (slang) Chinese yuan

Where its shape comes from

Grains. Xu Shen says "the grain of millet" and "a picture of the shape of the cereal grain"; the earliest inscriptions line dots up on either side of a stroke, which is read either as the ear of corn or as the rack on which the grains are separated. Their number varies, four, six, sometimes more, and the four marks of today's character are a late tidying up, like the four drops of 雨 (yǔ), rain.

Source: Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi (121 CE); the Chinese University of Hong Kong character database.

A way to remember it

A cross, with four marks around it: two above that splay apart, two below that do the same. The ones above touch nothing, which is the opposite of 羊 (yáng), the sheep, whose two little horns do touch the bar. Rub the four of them out and 木 (mù), the tree, is what remains.

This is a memory aid, not the origin of the character.

Words it appears in

Writing it

See the stroke order of 米, animated stroke by stroke.

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