「Person honest, correct, unbent, direct, under control of his or her own thoughts, self」is of VALUE, WORTH, WORTHY, DESERVING, with MERIT.
　「Person」with「hanged by the neck, fear of execution, direct, straight」may represent a method for finding the true WORTH, VALUE of a「person when faced with the ultimate set of circumstances」a meaning that extends to PRICE and hence COST. Interestingly this glyph also represents a VARIABLE as used in mathematics or computer programming, a VALUE THAT CHANGES under different sets of circumstances. A「person who is upright, direct, and correct」is of great worth and value…and hopefully cannot be bought for a price or at any cost,…unless,「every person has their price」is a truism, and the price is a variable by individual. Possibly the standardized value of a slave or servant being traded in the markets and determining the slave's worth by looking「directly at the person standing straight up」not crouching or concealing any defective body parts.
　The oldest meaning may be depicting the cost of「It's what's for dinner!」(these elements literally are a person dangling directly into a fleshpot)…early cannibalistic human beings were involved in the meat trade, and a person as supper meat would then have a certain, relatively fixed VALUE to others:「We know that human sacrifice and cannibalism were widely practiced in pre-literate societies and that they were not local but universal cultural phenomena. …[T]he ancient Chinese also participated in this culture, which has much in common with the [Journal of Generative Anthropology] position about the violent origin and early development of human civilization…」
　　[　https://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap1401/1401plutschow/ 2011-03-08　]　
　「Human cannibals likely took a big bite out of their fellow humans about 10,000 years ago, according to a study that examined prehistoric bones with scratch and bite marks on them. …In the end, they discovered 30 bones belonging to three individuals: a robust adult, a gracile adult and an infant. However, the infant had only one complete bone (a shoulder blade, or scapula) that did not show signs of cannibalism, the researchers said. …But the practice goes way back: there's even evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism in Belgium and Spain from more than 40,000 years ago, when they went extinct, Live Science previously reported.」
　　[　https://www.cbsnews.com/news/prehistoric-human-bones-show-signs-of-cannibalism/ 2017-03-28　]　

Modern definitions (that generally disregard history) …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may list only pigeonholed definitions, euphemisms, or meaningless mnemonics)
Chinese: variant of 值
Japanese: price, cost, value, worth, merit, count, number, variable, level, dignity, to be worth, to deserve, to merit
Unihan extended: price, cost, worth
EDRDG: price; cost; value

Used within names (nanori)
じ