厘

Also used in measurement terms, e.g., 厘米 (límǐ, “centimeter”) in Chinese.

Phono-semantic compound:

里 (리, “village, unit of distance”) — semantic, indicating measure, locality.

𠩺 (리, “to split, to divide”) — phonetic, providing the sound 리.

센티미터 (厘米) - centimeter

호리(毫釐) - an extremely tiny measure

Rare in modern Korean, but appears in classical Sino-Korean texts.

In 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian), 釐 is often used as a substitute character for 喜/僖 (“to rejoice”), due to name taboos (피휘) — the historian Sima Qian avoided writing his grandfather’s given name.

Later, 厘/釐 came to be used more in the sense of “fine division, tiny measure,” leading to its role in metric translation (厘米 = centimeter).

Idioms & Phrases:

毫釐千里 (호리천리) — “An error of a hair’s breadth may cause a thousand-li deviation.” Used in Confucian and military texts to emphasize caution.

差之毫釐，謬以千里 (차지호리, 유이천리) — “A mistake of a hair’s breadth leads to an error of a thousand li.” From Confucian literature.

毫釐不差 (호리불차) — “Not off by even a fraction,” i.e., extremely precise.

一毫一釐 (일호일리) — “every tiny bit,” emphasizing thoroughness or detail.

釐