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

HSK 6

雪地上留下了深深的车辙。

Xuědì shang liúxià le shēnshēn de chēzhé.

Deep wheel tracks were left in the snow.

HSK 7-9

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.

HSK 7-9

这首诗押的是哪个辙？

Zhè shǒu shī yā de shì nǎ gè zhé?

What rhyme scheme does this poem use?

Tips

memory

Remember 辙 through the idiom 重蹈覆辙 - 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

Middle 育 supplies the sound - yù drifting to zhé through long phonetic erosion (traditional 轍 used the 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.