猪肉
zhū ròu · HSK 3
pork
🐷🥩 猪肉 = pig + meat
猪 (zhū) is pig and 肉 (ròu) is meat/flesh, so the compound literally reads pig-meat = pork. The 肉 radical appears in many body/meat words like 肌 (muscle) and 肝 (liver).
猪 — dog radical 犭 + 者 zhě (phonetic)
猪 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 犭 (dog/animal radical) signals an animal, while 者 supplies the sound, originally close to zhū. It replaced the older character 豕 (a pictograph of a pig) as the everyday word for the domestic pig.
肉 — pictograph of a slab of meat with ribs/striations
肉 is a pictograph originally depicting a piece of butchered meat, showing the outer cut and the striations of muscle or ribs inside. The character has meant 'flesh' or 'meat' since oracle bone times. As a radical it is usually written 月 on the left or bottom of characters relating to the body (e.g. 肝, 胃).