Just another pith painting

[lep]

Hello again,

just dropping another pith painting, what's written?

 

Thanks in advance for your help and time!

Best wishes!

(sorry about poor quality)

[Dlezcano]

老鼠药？I am guessing the second character from the context since there are two dead mice hanging there.

[889]

Although 药 is the modern simplified form of 藥, Wenlin seems to indicate that 葯 was a long-standing variant.

 

"药 really originated in 葯 yào 'Dahurian angelica', the name of a particular herb. 葯 yào was borrowed to be a variant of 藥 yào, the pronunciations being the same."

 

Note the picture uses 葯.

[大块头]

I was just looking at the definition of 药 this morning. Besides the primary meaning of "medicine" it can also mean "to poison".

 

For example:

药老鼠

to poison rats

[Demonic_Duck]

16 hours ago, 大块头 said:

Besides the primary meaning of "medicine" it can also mean "to poison".

In this instance it'd be "poison" (noun). Though it's interesting that a lot of dictionaries don't mention that meaning or seem to treat it as an extension of "medicine".

 

规范词典：

1、（名）能防治病毒、病虫害或改善机体机能的物质

...

3、（动）用药毒死，如“药耗子”

 

Seems like there's a missing step there, unless mice are somehow a subset of 病虫...