肉排 is Chinese for steak (e.g. 牛排 or 猪排 for beef steak and pork steak), but where did the 排 come from? As a Western cuisine dish, did the word have some roundabout origin?
排 means row/rank, which has nothing to do with steak. 排 makes more sense in the word 排骨 (spareribs) - literally "rows of bones".
Wiki page of 牛排 gives a clue of its etymology, written by, 姚德懷, the current chairman of 香港中國語文學會 (The Chinese Language Society of Hong Kong Ltd.), a non-profit organization in Hong Kong. Here's a summary:
According to 漢語大詞典, the word 牛排 has been cited in some novels in Qing Dynasty in the beginning of 20th century. Such as:
「三荷包接過看時，只見上面開的是：清牛湯、炙鰣魚、冰蠶阿、丁灣羊肉、漢巴德、牛排、凍豬腳、橙子冰忌廉、澳洲翠鳥雞、龜仔蘆筍、生菜英腿、加利蛋飯、白浪布丁、濱格、豬古辣冰忌廉、葡萄乾、香蕉、咖啡。」from『官場現形記』之第七回 第三段 第四句 (sentence 4, paragraph 3, chapter 7) and,
「這句話被那位候補道听見了，到了晚上，便請制台吃飯，仍然辦的是西菜，仍用的是西式盤子，卻將一切牛排、雞排是整的都切碎了，席上不放刀叉，只擺著筷子。」from 『二十年目睹之怪現狀』之第七十八回 第三段 第六句 (sentence 6, paragraph 3, chapter 78).
The author puts: 排 seems to stem from the 排骨 in 排骨麵 served in Shanghai being similar to Western pork chop. (上海「排骨麵」裏的大塊「排骨」近似西菜裏的「豬排」，「排」字的用法似由此而起。)
The pronunciation of 排 in Shanghai local dialect is similar to 扒 in Cantonese, which seems to be the reason that Cantonese also use 牛扒 to mean 牛排. (「排」，上海話讀「bɑ」，廣東人聽成「p’a」，似因此也寫為「扒」。)
