'For the former, the variant 鵰 ('bird' radical) is sometimes employed, while for the latter, the variant 琱 ('jade' radical) is sometimes used.In rare cases, two characters in ancient Chinese with similar meanings can be confused and conflated if their modern Chinese readings have merged, for example, 飢 and 饑, are both read as "jī" and mean 'famine; severe hunger' and are used interchangeably in the modern language, even though 飢 meant 'insufficient food to satiate', and 饑 meant 'famine' in Old Chinese.