Not a free word today. As lí it survives only in the saying 以蠡测海 (to gauge the sea with a dipper — to judge with shallow knowledge). Read lǐ it names the strategist 范蠡 and 蠡县 in Hebei.
culture
范蠡 helped Yue defeat Wu, then retired to become a legendary merchant — the reason 蠡 is still recognised mainly through his name.
First of the paired insect radicals 虫. The doubled bug links the lǐ 'wood-boring insect' sense; in the gourd-dipper sense it is just the inherited radical.
