格(gé) - square, grid cell, standard in Mandarin

格 (gé) is a squared-off division: a box on a form, a cell on a spreadsheet, a square on a chessboard. Counted with 个, and in speech usually softened to 格子.

Its second sense grew out of the first. A frame implies a fixed shape, so 格 also means a standard or pattern, and that is the meaning it carries inside its compounds: 价格 (price), 性格 (character), 资格 (qualification), 合格 (up to standard), 表格 (a form), 格外 (exceptionally, outside the usual bounds).

The trap is expecting to use it alone very often. Modern spoken Chinese prefers 格子 for a physical square, and the bare character mostly lives inside those compounds. Learn 格 as the piece that explains why 价格 and 性格 mean what they do, and you get six words for the price of one.