Origin

This character is a simple picture of a dish or plate viewed from above. The rectangular outline represents the rim or edge of the plate, and the space inside shows the hollow center where food would sit. The shape directly resembles how a flat dish appears when you look down at it, so ancient writers chose this picture to represent the object itself. Over time, the character came to mean not just a physical dish, but also "a helping" or "a serving" of food that would be placed on such a dish.