the.com/meat

means The flesh of an animal eaten as food — though the word has also drifted to mean the solid, substantial core of anything, food or otherwise.

from From Old English 'mete,' which simply meant food in general — any food, not specifically flesh. For centuries English speakers used it the way we'd use 'food' today. Over time its meaning narrowed, especially in English (other Germanic relatives, like Swedish 'mat,' still mean food broadly), until by a few centuries ago 'meat' had settled into its current, fleshier sense — leaving fossils of the old meaning behind in words like 'sweetmeat' and 'nutmeat,' which have nothing to do with animals at all.