超车
chāo chē · HSK 7
to overtake (another car)
🚗💨 CHAO che = surpass + car — zoom past the slow car ahead
超 means to surpass or exceed, 车 means car or vehicle. Together they literally say exceed-car, which is exactly what overtaking is — passing beyond another vehicle on the road.
超 — 走 (run) + 召 (summon, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: 走 'run' gives the meaning of moving past or going beyond, while 召 'summon' supplies the sound. The original sense was to leap or stride over something, which extended to 'surpass' and 'exceed'.
车 — pictograph of a chariot/cart
车 is a pictograph originally drawn as a top-down view of a chariot, showing the axle, wheels, and carriage box. The ancient form 車 clearly depicted two wheels connected by an axle. It still means vehicle, cart, or car today.