車

]

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.

Unrelated to 倝 and 朝.

Perhaps a loan from an Indo-European language because the horse and chariot were introduced into China around 1200 BC from Inner Asia; compare Tocharian A kukäl, Tocharian B kokale (“wagon; cart”) (Mair, 1990, Bauer, 1994), from Proto-Tocharian *kuk(ä)le, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷékʷlos, from a reduplication of the root *kʷel- (“to turn”). Cognate with English wheel, Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos), Lithuanian kaklas (“neck”), etc.

Sagart and Baxter (2025) specifically pinpoint descent from some reflex of Proto-Indo-Iranian *čakrám and update their 2014 reconstructions to *t.[qʰ]rA > chē and *[C.q]ra > jū. They also suppose that the variation of pronunciations could be attributed to separate borrowing events from Indo-Aryan and Iranian.

An older variant survives in Mandarin 軲轆／轱辘 (gūlu, “wheel”) (Bauer, 1994). Alternatively, the word is a derivation by k-prefix from 舁 (OC *la, “to lift”) (Baxter and Sagart, 1998); compare the semantic parallel in Tibetan ཐེག་པ (theg pa, “vehicle; carriage”) (OC *kʰljaʔ, *kʰljas) and 居 (OC *kas) (Schuessler, 2007). Pronunciation 2 is traditionally regarded as the older pronunciation.

The sense of lewd content is derived from 老司機 /老司机 (lǎosījī).