《说文解字·艸部》药食类植物词语名称考释（之一）——蔬菜类

《说文解字·艸部》的词语中有不少是属于蔬菜类、草药类或者是两者兼类的植物的。但是很多词语由于许慎的说解很简单，有些甚至解释成了别的意思，致使人们不知它们的确切含义。对于这些词语，弄清楚它们的确切含义以及它们在现代汉语中相对应的名称，就能为当代人读懂《说文解字》该章节扫清障碍，从而进一步了解古代社会我国民众使用中草药和食用蔬菜的基本状况，并且为现代社会人们提供药用类和食用类蔬菜一些有益的借鉴，取其精华，去其糟粕，达到古为今用的目的。

An Investigation on the Chinese Characters Connected with Medicinal Food

A great number of Chinese characters analyzed in ＂shuowen jiezi—— the radical cao＂ are related to vegetables, herbs or plants that are both vegetables and herbs. In this book, Xu Shen simplified the meaning of many characters or altered the original meanings of some characters, so the correct meaning of them remained vague to readers. To further explain these characters and find their equivalents in modern Chinese will help contemporary readers to properly interpret the book ＂shuowen jiezi＂ and understand the circumstances in which ancient Chinese people made use of traditional herbal medicine and vegetables. This will also provide suggestions to the people in modern society on how to distinguish medicinal vegetables from edible vegetables.