香肠
xiāng cháng · HSK 5
sausage
🌭 香 fragrant + 肠 intestine = fragrant intestine = sausage
香 (xiāng) means fragrant or aromatic; 肠 (cháng) means intestine, the casing traditionally used. Together they describe a seasoned, fragrant cased meat — literally a fragrant gut tube.
香 — grain 禾 over sun 日 (originally 甘 'sweet')
Originally an ideograph showing grain (禾) over a vessel of sweet/savory taste (甘), depicting the aroma of cooked millet. Over time the lower 甘 was simplified to 日. The character broadened from 'fragrance of grain' to any pleasant smell, and by extension 'incense' and 'delicious'.
肠 — meat radical 月(肉) + 昜 (yáng, phonetic)
肠 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 月 is the 'meat/flesh' radical, marking it as a body part. The right side 昜 (yáng) supplies the sound, which shifted over time to cháng. It originally referred to intestines, and still does today.