漢字Kanji · in Human Body & People
肉: meat
Oracle bone · Shang Small seal · Qin Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
One reading, and the words that use it
ニクniku · on'yomi · in compounds
- 肉屋にくやbutcher [n.]
- 肉食にくしょくmeat-eating, carnivorous
- 肉体にくたいbody, flesh
- 肉親にくしんblood relative
- 肉眼にくがんnaked eye
- 肉筆にくひつone's own handwriting
- 皮肉ひにくcynicism, sarcasm, irony, satire
- 牛肉ぎゅうにくbeef
- 豚肉ぶたにくpork
- 鳥肉とりにくchicken meat
- 筋肉きんにくmuscle, sinew
- 挽き肉ひきにくminced, ground meat
Also read しし, with no example words in our sources. Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
Ribs of an animal’s torso or simply a physical representation of a slice of meat. Stylized into 月 when next to a phonetic component and 𱼀 and/or 夕 inside some characters.
Source: Wiktionary, 肉 (rev. 93434345), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“The base kanji for meat or the physical body, used in everything from culinary contexts to biological descriptions.”
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · ròu
Same form: 肉 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 肉 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 肉 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin ròu most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.