月（yuè；moon, flesh）

The original meaning of the pictograph 月 is moon. Its ancient form looks like a crescent moon. Because the waxing and waning of the moon divides the year into natural cycles, 月 also means month. As a radical, it can appear on the left or at the bottom of a compound to indicated meanings related to time and light, such as in the characters 期 （qī；period）, 时 (shí; time), 明 ( míng; bright). After the simplification of Seal Script in the Qin Dynasty, the character肉 (flesh) was simplified to月, the exact same character as moon. Therefore, in modern scrip we see characters such as 腰 (yāo; waist), 肝 (gān; liver), 肠 (cháng, intestine), 胃 (wèi; stomach), and背 (bèi; back) written with月. In these characters 月 means flesh rather than moon.