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).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. shaft of a cart or carriage

Etymology & Origin

辕

pictophoneticwheel

Decomposition: ⿰车袁 (layout: left-right)

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phrasenán yuán běi zhéto act in a way that defeats one's purpose (idiom)
轩辕nounxuān yuánXuan Yuan, personal name of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝
轩辕十四proper-nounxuān yuán shí sìRegulus (constellation)
车辕nounchē yuánshaft of a traditional animal-drawn vehicle (cart, carriage, wagon etc), connecting the harness to the vehicle body
驾辕jià yuánto pull a carriage (of draft animal)
轩辕氏xuān yuán shìalternative name for the Yellow Emperor 黃帝|黄帝
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
0.57056 co-occurrences
剑jiàn
0.509246 co-occurrences
禅chán
0.47178 co-occurrences
攀pān
0.41650 co-occurrences
庙miào
0.40386 co-occurrences
涛tāo
0.40132 co-occurrences
帝dì
0.397179 co-occurrences
涂tú
0.38732 co-occurrences
黄huáng
0.380173 co-occurrences
门mén
0.378218 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (2)

轩辕十四xuānyuán shísì

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.

中国新闻网·文化Oct 2026

“黄山七四七·轩辕开太平”公共文化展演1日晚在安徽省黄山市举行。

huáng shān qī sì qī xuān yuán kāi tài píng gōng gòng wén huà zhǎn yǎn 1 rì wǎn zài ān huī shěng huáng shān shì jǔ xíng .

The “Huangshan 747: Xuanyuan Brings Peace” public cultural performance took place on the evening of the 1st in Huangshan City, Anhui Province.

少数派Aug 2026

结果装完之后发现,这些家电颜色五花八门、边框粗细不一、风格南辕北辙。

jié guǒ zhuāng wán zhī hòu fā xiàn , zhè xiē jiā diàn yán sè wǔ huā bā mén , biān kuàng cū xì bù yī , fēng gé nán yuán běi zhé .

After everything was installed, we found that these appliances came in a wide variety of colors, had frames of varying thicknesses, and were completely mismatched in style.

光明网_新闻视野、文化视角、思想深度、理论高度Apr 2026

共拜轩辕 根脉相连——台胞赴豫参加丙午年黄帝故里...

gòng bài Xuān yuán gēn mài xiāng lián — — tái bāo fù yù cān jiā bǐng wǔ nián huáng dì gù lǐ . . .

Worshiping the Yellow Emperor Together, United by Common Roots—Taiwan Compatriots Travel to Henan to Attend the 2015 Huangdi Hometown Festival...

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

Semantic Family — Characters sharing the 车 (wheel) component

Homophones — Characters pronounced yuán

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"); 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"); 驾辕 (jià yuán, "to pull a carriage (of draft animal)"). There are over 6 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 辕 (yuán)?
Several characters share the pronunciation yuán: 猿 (ape). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
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 spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

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.