辙 (zhé): rut / wheel track

Meanings

1 rut / wheel track
2 rhyme scheme (in verse)
3 way / method

Characters

辙

zhé

rut / wheel track / rhyme scheme

Examples

他重蹈了前人的覆辙。

Tā chóngdǎo le qiánrén de fùzhé.

He fell into the same rut as those before him.

雪地上留下了深深的车辙。

Xuědì shang liúxià le shēnshēn de chē zhé.

Deep wheel tracks were left in the snow.

这首诗押的是哪个辙？

Zhè shǒu shī yā de shì nǎgè zhé?

What rhyme scheme does this poem use?

Tips

memory

Remember 辙 through the idiom 重蹈覆辙 (chóngdǎo fùzhé) — to repeat the same mistakes, literally 'to tread again in the overturned ruts'. The cart radical (车) inside hints at wheel tracks.

usage

In Beijing colloquial speech, 辙 also means rhyme or rhyme scheme in opera and folk music. This is distinct from its literal meaning of wheel rut.

Components

radical

车 chē

cart; chariot

Left cart radical — pictograph of a wheeled vehicle seen from above. The indexing radical, anchoring 辙 in the transport family with 轨 rail, 轮 wheel, 转 turn. The cart is what cuts the rut: literally the wheel-track left in the ground.

phonetic

育 yù

raise; nurture (here phonetic)

Middle 育 supplies the sound — yù drifting to zhé through long phonetic erosion (traditional 轍 used 徹 phonetic series). 育 itself means "to nurture," but here it works as a graphic-phonetic placeholder, not contributing meaning to the rut sense.

semantic

攵 pū

tap; strike (radical form)

Right 攵 (the rap radical, abbreviated 攴) — a hand holding a stick, signifying active force or driving. In 辙 it suggests the cart being driven forward, pressing its wheels into the road. Same component appears in 教 teach, 政 govern, 改 change — wherever a directed action is implied.