字の旅3,000 years in four forms
Oracle bone · ShangShang · c. 1200 BCE
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Bronze and small seal: Academia Sinica 小學堂, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
部首Radical · in Tools & Weapons
車 cart, wheel, vehicle
くるま kuruma · as a side part くるまへん kurumahen
7 strokesRadical of 16 kanjiPart of 20
Origin · sourced
Pictogram象形
Originally a carriage seen from above. In the oracle bone script, there were large wheels on both sides and a central shaft at the front.
Source: Wiktionary, 車 (rev. 94513764), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Look down on the world's first machines! This character shows the wheels and the frame of an ancient wagon. It represents the invention of the wheel and the power of transportation—carrying us and our inventions across vast distances with ease and speed.”
Where it sits in a kanji
Indicates vehicles, wheels, transportation, or anything that revolves and carries a load
What it grows into
- 軍armyグン · いくさ
車 + 勹
Semantic 車 (“chariot”) + phonetic 勹. The phonetic component here is not 勹, but the original form of 螾, which also acts as the phonetic component of 旬, 勻 and 云.
Ideogrammic compound · Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 軽lightlyケイ · かるい
車 + 巠sound
The word originally referred to a kind of light carriage.
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, 輕, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 転revolveテン · ころがる
車 + 專sound
Phono-semantic compound · Wiktionary, 轉, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every kanji with 車 as its radical
All 16 kanji