煤炭
méi tàn · HSK 7
coal
🪨 煤 = coal + 炭 = charcoal; both burnable black rock, together they mean coal
煤 — fire radical 火 + 某 (méi, phonetic)
煤 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The fire radical 火 signals the meaning (something that burns), while 某 supplies the sound 'méi'. Originally referring to soot or charcoal residue, the character later came to mean coal once that fuel became widely used.
炭 — mountain 山 + cliff 厂 + fire 火
炭 depicts charcoal produced by burning wood from the mountainside. The top combines 山 (mountain) and 厂 (cliff/slope), suggesting the hillside source of timber, while 火 (fire) below shows the burning process. The original meaning was charcoal, later extended to coal and carbon.