穿越
chuānyuè · HSK 7
pass through
🚇 穿 penetrate + 越 cross over — drill through and out the other side
穿 alone means to pierce or wear (thread passing through cloth). 越 means to exceed or leap over. Together they describe cutting straight through an obstacle to the other side.
穿 — cave 穴 on top + tooth 牙 below
Originally a compound suggesting a tooth (牙) boring through a cave or hole (穴), giving the core sense of 'pierce through' or 'penetrate'. From this came extended meanings like 'pass through', 'wear (clothes)' — i.e. pass the body through fabric — and 'bore a hole'.
越 — 走 (run) + 戉 (axe, phonetic)
Originally a phono-semantic compound: 走 ('to run, go') gives the meaning of crossing or passing over, while 戉 (an ancient axe) supplies the sound. From 'to stride across' it extended to 'exceed, surpass,' and was later borrowed as the name of the ancient Yue state and people in southern China.