辕 (yuán): shaft of a cart or carriage

辕 (yuán) is a Chinese character meaning “shaft of a cart or carriage.” Classified as HSK Level 7-9 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 车 (semantic) and 袁 (phonetic). It ranks #3124 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 辕 wheel. Its radical form 车 (cart) appears in many related characters such as 车 (chē, vehicle), 辆 (liàng, measure word for vehicles), 轻 (qīng, light).

Native pronunciation
HSK 7-9Radical: 车 cart14 strokesFrequency #3124车 semantic袁 phonetic

Definitions

  1. shaft of a cart or carriage

Etymology & Origin

辕

pictophoneticwheel

Decomposition: ⿰车袁 (layout: left-right)

Components:车semantic袁phonetic

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Practice writing 辕 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
南辕北辙nán yuán běi zhéto act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)
轩辕xuān yuánXuan Yuan, personal name of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝[Huang2 di4]
轩辕十四xuān yuán shí sìRegulus (constellation)
车辕chē yuánshaft of a traditional animal-drawn vehicle (cart, carriage, wagon etc), connecting the harness to the vehicle body
轩辕氏xuān yuán shìalternative name for the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝
驾辕jià yuánto pull a carriage (of draft animal)
6
Total compounds
0
As first character
50
As last character
50
As middle character

辕 appears in 6 compound words: 0 as the first character, 50 as the last, and 50 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 辕 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

辙zhé
0.578168 co-occurrences
剑jiàn
0.517738 co-occurrences
禅chán
0.478234 co-occurrences
攀pān
0.422150 co-occurrences
庙miào
0.409258 co-occurrences
涛tāo
0.40796 co-occurrences
黄huáng
0.399510 co-occurrences
涂tú
0.39396 co-occurrences
门mén
0.383654 co-occurrences
斩zhǎn
0.37760 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

轩辕十四xuānyuán shísìHSK 7+

Regulus

Showing 1 of 2 idioms containing 辕.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这个辕字在古汉语中有不同的含义。

zhè gè yuán zì zài gǔ hàn yǔ zhōng yǒu bù tóng de hán yì .

In Classical Chinese, the character "轅" has different meanings.

BastillepostFeb 2026

井田、辕田、名田宅

jǐng tián , yuán tián , míng tián zhái

Well field, yoke field, famous field house

Character Family

车 Radical Family — Characters sharing the cart radical

辈bèi辐fú辅fǔ轨guǐ辑jí较jiào轮lún轻qīng软ruǎn输shū

Related Characters

车chē辆liàng轻qīng轮lún软ruǎn转zhuǎn载zài较jiào输shū辑jí

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 辕 (yuán) mean in Chinese?
辕 (yuán) primarily means "shaft of a cart or carriage." It is classified as HSK Level 7-9, making it an expert-level character. It ranks #3124 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 辕 have?
辕 is written with 14 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 辕?
The radical associated with 辕 is 车 (cart). This radical appears in many characters related to cart.
What are the components of 辕?
辕 is composed of: 车 (semantic), 袁 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰车袁 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 辕?
Common words with 辕 include: 南辕北辙 (nán yuán běi zhé, "to act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)"); 轩辕 (xuān yuán, "Xuan Yuan, personal name of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝[Huang2 di4]"); 轩辕十四 (xuān yuán shí sì, "Regulus (constellation)"); 车辕 (chē yuán, "shaft of a traditional animal-drawn vehicle (cart, carriage, wagon etc), connecting the harness to the vehicle body"); 轩辕氏 (xuān yuán shì, "alternative name for the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
Is 辕 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 辕 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 辕 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.