饑

Phono-semantic compound:

食 (식, food) – semantic component, indicating relation to eating.

幾 (기, how many, few) – phonetic component.

Together: “food + scarcity” → hunger, famine.

饑荒 (기황) — famine, crop failure

饑饉 (기근) — famine, scarcity of food

饑渴 (기갈) — hunger and thirst

饑寒 (기한) — hunger and cold

Distinction:

飢 originally “to be hungry.”

饑 originally “famine, crop failure.”

Over time, the two merged in meaning and pronunciation, and 飢 is often treated as the simplified form of 饑.