车 (chē): vehicle; car

Measure Word

一辆车 liàng

Meanings

1 vehicle; car
2 machine; wheeled instrument
3 to shape on a lathe; to machine

Characters

车

chē

vehicle; cart

Simplified from 車 — pictograph of a cart seen from above.

Examples

你有车吗？

Nǐ yǒuchē ma?

Do you have a car?

车来了！

Chē lái le!

The bus is here!

我父亲在工厂里当车工。

Wǒ fùqīn zài gōngchǎng lǐ dāng chēgōng.

My father is a lathe operator at the factory.

Tips

history

The traditional form 車 is a top-down pictograph of a chariot: an axle running through two wheels with a yoke and frame. Among the oldest attested Chinese characters, found on oracle bones. Simplified to 4-stroke 车 in the 1956 reform, which keeps only the central axle and a stylised wheel-box.

usage

Generic word for any wheeled vehicle. Specifics use compounds: 汽车 (car), 火车 (train), 公共汽车 (bus), 自行车 (bicycle), 出租车 (taxi). The verb sense ("to shape on a lathe") survives mainly in factory vocabulary: 车床 (lathe), 车工 (lathe operator).

Components

pictograph

车 chē

cart; vehicle

Simplified from 車 in the 1956 reform. The traditional form is a top-down picture of a chariot — an axle running through two wheels with a yoke and frame. The simplified silhouette keeps the central axle and a single squashed wheel-box; the apparent 七 and 十 inside are accidental stroke shapes, not meaningful pieces. As Kangxi radical #159 it indexes vehicle, transport, and wheel vocabulary: 轮 (wheel), 辆 (measure word for vehicles), 转 (turn), 输 (transport).

Radical

Vehicle Kangxi #159

The vehicle radical. Originally a top-down pictograph of a cart with axle and two wheels (traditional 車). Productive in vehicle, transport, and military-engineering vocabulary: 轮 (wheel), 输 (transport/lose), 软 (soft, originally pliable wagon), 转 (turn), 较 (compare, lit. measure carriage axles), 辆 (measure word for vehicles), 辙 (rut).