里程碑
lǐ chéng bēi · HSK 7
milestone
🪧 里 (Chinese mile) + 程 journey + 碑 stone stele = a stone marking distance along a journey: a milestone
Decomposes literally: 里 is the old Chinese mile unit, 程 means a stretch of travel or journey, and 碑 is a stone tablet or stele. Put together they name the roadside distance-marker stone, which is exactly what milestone means.
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.
碑 — stone 石 + low/humble 卑 (phonetic)
碑 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 石 'stone' gives the meaning, while 卑 (bēi) supplies the sound. Originally it referred to upright stones used at graves or palaces to tether animals or mark events; it later came to mean an inscribed stone tablet or monument.