Pictogram. In the Oracle Bone Script and the Bronze Script, it depicts the half moon, and the 2 strokes in the middle represent moon light.
The Small Seal Scripts of 肉 and 月 are very similar to each other. Later, with the evolution of characters, the radical 肉 (as the left-side radical) is simplified to the radical 月.
There are about 3 types of characters having the radical 月.
- Most of these characters have something to do with flesh, ròu肉(flesh), such as gēbó胳膊(arm);
- A few of them are related to the moon 月, such as qī期(period), wàng望(watch);
- Very few are the radical zhōu舟(boat) mistaken as 月, such as fú服(serve), zhèn朕(I, used by a royal person in proclamations).
