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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

里

/li²¹⁴/
li (a unit of distance equal to half a kilometre in modern Mainland China)
  • Ideogrammatic compound 會意
  • HSK 1
  • TOCFL 5
  • radical 里
  • 7 strokes

Etymology graph

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Origin

The character 里 is an ideogrammic compound formed from 田 (field) and 土 (soil; earth). According to the Shuowen Jiezi, it means a place of residence. It serves as a unit of distance, a measure of land, or a place, such as a neighborhood, village, or urban village.

It is inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rwəʔ (village). This root is cognate with Mizo khua (village), Lai khûa (village, cosmos), and Burmese ရွာ (village). Schuessler (2007) also proposes cognacy with Tibetan ར་བ (fence, enclosure, wall, pen), pointing to a semantic parallel between English town and German Zaun (fence). It is also cognate with 丘 (hill, mound) and 街 (road crossing, street).

An alternative possibility is that it is related to 理 (to divide into equal sections), though Schuessler notes that early Chinese villages were not systematically planned and platted. The character 里 is the simplified form of 裏 and 裡.

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

「里」屬於會意構成，由「田」（農田）與「土」（土壤）組成，意指土地與田野的測量、里程或場所。根據語言學研究，此字繼承自原始漢藏語 *rwəʔ（意為「村莊」）。在語言學上，它與「丘」（丘、丘陵）及「街」（路口、街道）互為同源詞。在漢藏語系之外，它也與米佐語的 khua（村莊）、萊語的 khûa（村莊、宇宙）以及緬甸語的 ရွာ（村莊）同源。Schuessler (2007) 亦指出其可能與藏語的 ར་བ（圍欄、圍牆、圈）同源，這與英文 town 與德文 Zaun（圍欄）之間的語義平行現象相似。

此外，也有說法認為「里」可能與「理」（劃分為相等的部分）有關，但 Schuessler 指出早期漢語村落並非皆經過系統性的規劃與劃分。在字形演變上，「里」也是「裏」與「裡」（意為「在裡面」）的簡化形式。其中「裏」與「裡」皆由「衣」（衣服）作為語義組成部分，並以「里」作為音符。

Confidence: high · written by gemma4:26b, checked statement-by-statement against the sources below.

Lineage

  • simplified fromChinese裏
    • meaningChinese衣 “garment; clothes; clothing (Classifier: 件)”
  • simplified fromChinese裡 “in; inside”
  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*rwəʔ “village”
  • ideaChinese田 “farmland (Classifier: 塊／块 m c)”
  • ideaChinese土 “earth; soil”

Related: English town, Mizo khua, Lai khûa, Burmese ရွာ, Tibetan ར་བ, German Zaun

Words built on it: 公里, 理

Wiktionary etymology text

Ideogrammic compound (會意 /会意): 田 (“field”) + 土 (“soil; earth”) – a measure of land and fields; mile; place.

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rwəʔ (“village”) (STEDT, under PTB *r/g-wa). Cognate with 丘 (OC *kʰʷɯ) "hill, mound" & 街 (OC *kreː, *kreː) "road crossing, street"; outsides Sinitic, cognate with Mizo khua (“village”), Lai khûa (“village, cosmos”), Burmese ရွာ (rwa, “village”); Schuessler (2007) also proposes cognacy with Tibetan ར་བ (ra ba, “fence, enclosure, wall, pen”) by pointing to a semantic parallel between English town and German Zaun (“fence”).

Alternatively, possibly related to 理 (lǐ) "to divide into equal sections", yet Schuessler also noted that early Chinese villages were not systematically planned and platted.

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Meanings

character
  1. li (a unit of distance equal to half a kilometre in modern Mainland China)
  2. neighbourhood (formal or informal grouping of adjacent dwellings; the size vary according to different historical sources)
  3. urban village (an administrative unit in the Republic of China)
  4. village (an administrative unit in South Korea and North Korea)
  5. lane (a type of road in Hong Kong)
  6. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

里：居也。从田从土。凡里之屬皆从里。

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

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 街坊、巷弄。 例：里巷、里坊
  2. 居住的地方，多指故鄉。 例：故里、離邦去里
  3. 地方政府行政區域之一，在鎮之下，鄰之上，與村平行。
  4. 量詞。計算長度的單位。古代以三百六十步為一里。今一公里等於1000公尺。

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

How 里 was written 字形演變

  1. 里 in Bronze script
    Bronze
    金文
    Shang–Zhou
  2. 里 in Chu slips & silk script
    Chu slips & silk
    楚系簡帛
    Warring States
  3. 里 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  4. 里 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  5. 里 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

  • etymagent (local gemma4:26b) — Generated
  • 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: 里