船长
chuán zhǎng · HSK 6
captain
⚓ 船 = boat + 长 = chief/elder; the boat's chief
船 (chuán) means boat or ship, and 长 (zhǎng) means chief or senior. Put together, 船长 literally reads as boat-chief — the person in charge of the vessel, i.e. the captain or skipper.
船 — boat radical 舟 + 㕣 (phonetic)
船 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 舟 depicts a boat and gives the meaning, while the right side 㕣 originally suggested the sound. Together they refer to a ship or vessel, a meaning that has stayed stable since early seal script.
长 — pictograph of long-haired person with cane
Originally a pictograph showing a person with long, flowing hair leaning on a cane, representing an elder. The meaning extended from 'long hair' to 'long' in general, and also to 'elder' or 'to grow' (read zhǎng). The modern form 长 is a simplification of the traditional 長.