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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

利

lì
benefit; advantage
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 刀
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 禾 (“grain”) + 刀 (“knife”) – to reap grain (禾) with a knife (刀). See also the variant 𥝢, which appears on top of the character 黎.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rit (“to reap, scrape, shave, cut, sever”) (STEDT, Schuessler, 2007); cognate to Mizo rît (“to scrap with a hoe”), Gurung [script needed] (wriqba, “to scratch”), Burmese ရိတ် (rit, “to cut, reap, mow shave”).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • ideaChinese禾 “grain; cereal”
  • ideaChinese刀 “knife; blade (Classifier: 把 m c g h j mb md w x; 張／张 c h; 叢／丛 mn; 支 mn mn-t)”

Related: Mizo rît, Burmese ရိတ်

Words built on it: 利用, 利益, 福利, 有利, 流利, 利息, 便利

Meanings

character
  1. benefit; advantage
  2. profit
  3. interest
  4. to benefit; to be beneficial to
  5. favourable; successful
  6. sharp; sharp-edge

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

利：銛也。从刀。和然後利，从和省。《易》曰：“利者，義之和也。”

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 好處、益處。 例：利益、福利、見利思義
  2. 從本金生出的子錢。 例：利息、利潤、紅利
  3. 吉祥。 例：大吉大利
  4. 鋒銳。 例：銳利、鋒利
  5. 有益於。 例：利人利己
  6. 姓。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 利 was written 字形演變

  1. 利 in Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone
    甲骨文
    Shang, c. 1250–1050 BCE
  2. 利 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  3. 利 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  4. 利 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  5. 利 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  6. 利 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 利