noun

Meanings

  1. 1 (classical) sweet wine; sweet rice ale
  2. 2 (classical) sweet spring water (in 醴泉)

Examples

Wéi jiǔ wéi lǐ.
Make it into liquor, make it into sweet ale.

Tips

history
Not a free word today; it survives in literary set terms — 醴泉 (a sweet spring, an auspicious omen) and 甘醴. The left radical is , the wine-jar element behind and .
culture
A 醴泉 — a spring said to run sweet as wine — was traditionally read as a sign of a virtuous reign, which keeps alive in classical allusion.

Components

radical
yǒu
wine vessel
The radical pictures a wine jar and marks every fermentation word; on the left it tells you is a kind of brewed drink — a sweet ale.
phonetic
ritual vessel (phonetic)
On the right, the ritual-vessel graph supplies the lǐ sound — it is the same element standing inside 's traditional form .

Stroke Order