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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

理

lǐ
to cut and polish jade
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 玉
  • 11 strokes

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *rɯʔ): semantic 玉 (“jade”) + phonetic 里 (OC *rɯʔ).

According to Shuowen Jiezi, the character meant “to polish jade”. The current meaning “to order, tidy up” may be derived from it.

;"to cut jade, to mark out (field boundaries)"

;"to regulate"

;"to administer"

;"envoy, jail official, matchmaker"

:Possibly the same word as 理 (lǐ) "to administer".

:According to Schuessler (2007), from Austroasiatic; compare Old Khmer re (“to move, change position”) & its derivatives Old Khmer pre (“to send, order, assign, appoint, delegate, use, employ, make”), in turn related to paṃre (“to serve; service, duty; servant, delegate, representative, minister”); with Sino-Tibetan causative *s- corresponding to Khmer causative *p-..

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese玉 “jade (originally nephrite, now also including jadeite)”
  • soundChinese里 “li (a unit of distance equal to half a kilometre in modern Mainland China)”
    • ideaChinese田 “farmland (Classifier: 塊／块 m c)”
    • ideaChinese土 “earth; soil”

Related: Old Khmer re, Old Khmer pre

Words built on it: 理解, 理想, 管理, 道理, 理由, 整理, 心理, 合理, 代理, 助理, 修理, 真理

Meanings

character
  1. to cut and polish jade
  2. to put in order; to tidy up
  3. to manage; to run; to handle
  4. to pay attention to; to care about
  5. to concern oneself with; to interfere with
  6. texture; grain (of wood)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

理:治玉也。从玉，里聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 修整、整治。 例：整理、治理、管理
  2. 辦事、處置。 例：辦理、處理、代理
  3. 事物的規律、意旨。 例：天理、真理、定理
  4. 順序、層次。 例：條理井然、有條有理
  5. 條紋、紋路。 例：肌理、紋理
  6. 對別人的言行有所反應。 例：搭理、理會、不理不睬

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

How 理 was written 字形演變

  1. 理 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 理 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 理 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: 理