價

Phono-semantic compound:

人 (person) provides the semantic element, indicating human activity;

賈 (merchant, to trade) provides the phonetic element.

Alternate interpretation: both 人 and 賈 contribute meaning — “a person engaged in buying and selling (賈),” leading to the sense of “price” or “value.”

Closely related to 賈 itself (“merchant, to sell”), and sometimes interchangeable in older texts.

Semantic range:

- price, cost (가격);

- value, worth (가치);

- figuratively: importance, esteem.

價格 (가격) — price

價値 (가치) — value, worth

定價 (정가) — fixed price

原價 (원가) — original price, cost price

無價 (무가) — priceless

In everyday Korean, “값(價)” also conveys figurative worth, as in 값을 하다 (“to live up to one’s value”).

In Chinese, the simplified form 价 is used, but note that it shares the graph with the unrelated character 价 (“클 개” in traditional classification). Context disambiguates.

The character 賈 is both semantically related (“merchant”) and a surname, and can sometimes stand in for 價 in classical usage.