義理

ぎり · giri · JLPT N1 · noun

gratitude

🎁 義 (righteousness) + 理 (reason): the just reason to repay a kindness you received

義理 combines 義 (justice, righteousness) and 理 (reason, principle). Together they name the moral debt you owe someone who helped you, even when no contract requires repayment.

理 — jade radical 玉/王 + village 里 (phonetic)
理 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the jade radical 王 (玉) on the left signals meaning, while 里 on the right gives the sound. It originally meant the natural veins or grain in a piece of jade, then extended to 'pattern,' 'order,' 'principle,' and finally the modern senses 'reason' and 'to manage.'

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