U+9991 "馑" CJK Unified Ideograph-# Unicode Character

U+9991 "馑" CJK Unified Ideograph-# is a Chinese Han character representing the idea of famine, scarcity, or dearth, particularly in relation to food and agricultural hardship. Composed of the radical 食 (meaning "food" or "to eat") and the phonetic component 堇, it appears in classical and modern Chinese texts to denote periods of severe food shortage or starvation, often used in compounds such as 饥馑 (jījǐn, meaning "famine" or "hunger"). This character holds historical and cultural significance in East Asian literature, reflecting agrarian societies' deep concern with crop failure and subsistence crises.