How to Write 肉 (ròu) — Meaning “meat / flesh”

Imagine the outer frame of 肉 as a slice of meat on a grill, and the two inner pairs of strokes as grill marks or bone lines. You can also think of the character as a 'box' (囗) holding two 'people' (入) but simplified – those inner strokes are like two pieces of meat inside a wrapper.

Start by writing the outer frame: a vertical line on the left, then a horizontal line that turns down and ends with a hook at the bottom right. Inside, write two similar pairs – a left-falling stroke (丿) followed by a dot (丶) on each side. A common mistake is making the inner strokes too small or forgetting the hook, which makes the character look unbalanced.

肉 is a full standalone character meaning 'meat', while ⺼ is a simplified radical that appears inside other characters like 肚 (dù, belly) and 腿 (tuǐ, leg). The radical ⺼ looks almost identical to 月 (moon radical) but has two horizontal strokes instead of two, whereas 肉 is always written with a hook on the outer frame and a clear, separate structure. In short, 肉 is used by itself, and ⺼ is only a component.

肉 appears in everyday food words like 牛肉 (beef), 猪肉 (pork), and 吃肉 (to eat meat). It also refers to flesh in biological terms, such as 肌肉 (muscle). In Chinese cuisine, meat is a central ingredient, and dishes like 红烧肉 (braised pork belly) are cultural classics, so knowing 肉 helps you read menus and talk about food.

Common words containing 肉 include: 牛肉 (niú ròu) — beef; 猪肉 (zhū ròu) — pork; 吃肉 (chī ròu) — to eat meat.