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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

禮

lǐ
ritual; rite; ceremony
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • TOCFL 6
  • radical 示
  • 18 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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  • meaning component
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *riːʔ) and ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): semantic 礻 (“altar”) + phonetic 豊 (OC *riːʔ, “ceremony”) – performing rites at the altar.

Originally written 豊, see there for more.

Uncertain. Schuessler (2007) proposes that this is an old areal etymon. Compare Tibetan ཞེ་ས (zhe sa, “respect, honor, deference”), རྗེ་བོ (rje bo, “lord, nobleman”), རྗེད (rjed, “to honor; reverence”); Mru [script needed] (ri, “ritual”) is possibly borrowed from Austroasiatic (cf. Mon [script needed] (rèh seh, “to respect, to revere”); Thin Khmu [script needed] (rɛh, “to lift up”); both from Proto-Mon-Khmer *reh (“to raise up, to exalt”)).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese示 “to show; to reveal; to indicate; to notify; to instruct”
  • soundChinese豊 “ceremony”

Related: Tibetan ཞེ་ས, Proto-Mon-Khmer *reh

Meanings

character
  1. ritual; rite; ceremony
  2. rules of etiquette; rules of propriety
  3. courtesy; etiquette; manners
  4. present; gift (Classifier: 份 m c)
  5. to treat with respect and courtesy
  6. 48th tetragram of the Taixuanjing; "ritual" (𝌵)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

禮：履也，所以事神致福也。从示，从豊，豊亦聲。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 行為準則與規範。 例：禮俗、禮儀、禮節
  2. 儀式。 例：典禮、婚禮、成年禮
  3. 規矩恭敬的態度或行為。 例：無禮、謙恭有禮
  4. 表示敬意的贈品。 例：送禮、禮輕情意重
  5. 尊敬、厚待。 例：禮賢下士
  6. 致祭。 例：禮佛、禮神

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

How 禮 was written 字形演變

  1. 禮 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 禮 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 禮 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
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 禮