Origin

This character represents a unit of currency and measurement. The left component (厂) is a classifier indicating a small or narrow thing. The right component (里) serves as a sound hint telling you roughly how to pronounce the character as "rin," rather than contributing to the meaning itself. Together, the character came to denote a fractional unit — specifically one-tenth of a sen — perhaps because such small divisions were thought of as narrow or reduced portions of larger units.