Original meaning: cut jade
Phonosemantic compound. 𤣩 represents the meaning and 里 represents the sound.
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | liX | m(ə).rəʔ | cut jade; regulate |
| liX | m(ə).rəʔ | reason; principle |
說文解字
《說文》：“理，治玉也。从玉，里聲。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)
Simplified
Original meaning: wind instrument
Originally the same character as 于, depicting a musical wind instrument with a reed, which is now written as 竽. The current meaning is a phonetic loan.
Character Evolution
Traditional
Components
Character Evolution
Historical Pronunciations
| Middle Chinese | Old Chinese | Gloss | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baxter-Sagart | khjwe | [k]ʷʰ(r)aj | diminish |
說文解字
《說文》：“虧，气損也。从亏，雐聲。，虧或从兮。”
Sources
- Character origin
- 漢語多功能字庫
- Readings & variants
- Unicode
- Historical pronunciations
- Baxter-Sagart
- Historical images
- Academia Sinica
- Etymology
- Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)