Several parts combine into one character.

腸 is a phonetic-semantic compound: 月 (flesh, for body parts) + 昜 (yáng, originally a pictograph of sunlight rays extending in long, radiating beams — providing both the sound and a hint of "long, extended" meaning). The composite captures the body part precisely: a long, extended tube within the body — the intestines. The phonetic component 昜 anchors a beautiful family of "long-extended" characters: 場 (chǎng, open field / arena), 陽 (yáng, sun / yang principle), 楊 (yáng, willow tree — known for long drooping branches). All share the long-extended visual signature. Mainland China simplified to 肠.

Korean reading "jang." 大腸 (daejang, large intestine), 小腸 (sojang, small intestine), 腸炎 (jangyeom, enteritis / intestinal inflammation), 胃腸 (wijang, "stomach and intestines" = the digestive tract collectively), and the literarily charged 斷腸 (danjang, "broken intestines" = unbearable grief / heartbreak so severe it feels like the gut is being torn apart). The compound 斷腸 (Mandarin duàncháng, Japanese danchō) appears across CJK literature as the supreme metaphor for emotional anguish — used famously in classical Chinese poetry and reborn in modern song titles like Teresa Teng's 斷腸紅 ("Crimson of Broken Intestines"). Few somatic metaphors carry as much literary weight.

Mandarin cháng, 2nd tone (simplified 肠). 大肠 (dàcháng), 小肠 (xiǎocháng), 肠炎 (chángyán, enteritis), and the delightfully literal 香肠 (xiāngcháng, "fragrant intestines" = sausage). Western sausages, when translated into Mandarin, became "fragrant intestines" — a description that is anatomically accurate (sausage casing is intestine) and mouth-wateringly direct.

Japanese on-reading チョウ (chō) — 腸 (chō, intestine), 大腸 (daichō, large intestine), 小腸 (shōchō, small intestine), 胃腸 (ichō, gastrointestinal tract), 大腸炎 (daichōen, colitis). The kun-reading はらわた (harawata, "guts / innards") survives but is largely literary or archaic — modern Japanese medical and conversational use defaults to the on-reading chō.

Memory aid: flesh (月) plus 昜 (long extended sunbeams) — the long extended tube inside the body.