苗 | miáo

In Mandarin Chinese, 苗 (Pinyin: miáo 🔊) is a noun that means “seedling”, “sprout”, “young” (of an animal), “descendant”, “offspring” and so on. Some compound words of 苗 include

• 苗 + 木 = 苗木 (miáomù): young tree, sapling
• 苗 + 子 = 苗子 (miáozi): a talented child, “budding”, “in the making”
• 火 + 苗 = 火苗 (huǒmiáo): tongue of flame

According to Wiktionary, 苗 is an ideogrammic compound of 艹 “grass” and 田 “field”. But what it has to do with 猫, “cat”? The origin of the word 猫 (māo) is purely onomatopoetic: the cat is an animal that meows 🔊. Likewise, the word for this very sound, 喵 (miāo), “meow”, is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 口 “mouth” and phonetic 苗.

More photos related to sprouts, shoots, seedlings and sea glass @ Shutterstock.