夜里
yè li · HSK 2
at night
🌙 夜里 = night + inside (里 marks 'within')
夜 means night; 里 is a location suffix meaning 'inside' or 'within'. Together: within the night, i.e. during nighttime. Compare 家里 (at home) and 城里 (in the city) for the same 里 pattern.
夜 — 亠 lid + 亻 person + 夕 evening moon
夜 originally depicted a person (亻) under a roof (亠) with the moon (夕) beside them, evoking nighttime rest. The moon component 夕 carries the meaning of evening, while the surrounding elements set the scene of a person at night. Over time it came to mean 'night' in general.
里 — 田 (field) + 土 (earth)
Originally a pictograph combining 田 (field) and 土 (earth), depicting cultivated land where people lived. It came to mean 'village' or 'hometown,' and by extension a unit of distance (about 500 meters). The 'inside' meaning is borrowed; that sense was traditionally written 裏 or 裡.