Meaning & readings
car
On’yomi シャ
Kun’yomi くるま
Nanori くら、くろま
Origin
The kanji 車 is a picture of a wheeled vehicle seen from above. The character shows a rectangular frame representing the body or platform of a cart or carriage, with dots or marks inside suggesting the wheels. This direct visual representation of a vehicle with wheels is why the character came to mean "car" or any wheeled conveyance. Over time, as transportation evolved, the meaning extended from traditional carts to modern automobiles, but the ancient pictographic image remained unchanged.
AI-generated (claude-haiku-4-5), not yet reviewed. Formation type (automated guess): Pictographic or simple.
Components
This character is treated as a single, undivided shape (車).
Common words
Reference
- Strokes
- 7
- Kangxi radical
- 159
- Grade
- Grade 1 (Kyōiku)
- Frequency rank
- #333 (newspapers)
- Former JLPT
- level 4
- Unicode
- U+08ECA