肉
にく · niku · JLPT N5 · noun
meat
🥩🍖 niku sounds like knee-coo: meat from the knee joint, coo with delight
Niku is actually the on-reading, borrowed from Chinese (compare Mandarin ròu). The character 肉 began as a drawing of a cut of meat with rib lines inside. You already know it from yakiniku = grilled meat.
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).