1.
the flesh of fish, considered as a food ingredient — especially used as a generic or categorical term, or in processed-food names
A slightly technical or categorical word for fish as meat, in contrast to 肉 when it refers to livestock meat. Commonly seen on food labels and in processed-food names like 魚肉ソーセージ (fish sausage) or 魚肉ハム. Much less common in everyday cooking speech, where people simply say 魚.
魚肉ソーセージが好きだ。
I like fish sausages.
魚肉は高タンパクで低カロリーだ。
Fish meat is high in protein and low in calories.
この練り物は魚肉を主原料としている。
This processed product is made primarily from fish meat.
子どもの頃は、お弁当に魚肉ソーセージがよく入っていた。
When I was a kid, fish sausages were often in my lunchbox.
Compound of 魚 ("fish") + 肉 ("meat, flesh"). Treats fish as a category of meat. The word is somewhat technical and appears more in food-industry, nutritional, and processed-product contexts than in everyday speech.
USAGE:
- In everyday conversation, people normally say 魚 when talking about eating fish — not 魚肉.
- Extremely common as the first half of compound product names: 魚肉ソーセージ, 魚肉ハム, 魚肉練製品 (fish paste products).
- Used in nutrition and cooking-science discussions to classify food types.
COMMON COLLOCATIONS:
- 魚肉ソーセージ: fish sausage
- 魚肉ハム: fish ham
- 魚肉加工品: processed fish products
- 魚肉練製品: fish paste products (kamaboko, chikuwa, etc.)
SIMILAR WORDS:
- 魚: fish — the everyday word, used whether alive, raw, or cooked.
- 肉: meat — typically livestock meat (beef, pork, chicken); contrasts with 魚肉.
- 畜肉: livestock meat — the technical counterpart to 魚肉.
- 白身/赤身: white-fleshed / red-fleshed (fish) — describe types of fish flesh.