交番
こうばん · kouban · JLPT N5 · noun
box
👮🏠 交番 = exchange + turn/watch: officers swapping shifts on watch
交 means exchange or take turns, 番 means a turn or keeping watch. A kōban was originally the place where officers rotated guard duty, and the name stuck to the small neighbourhood police box itself.
交 — top 亠 + 父-like crossed legs
Originally a pictograph of a person standing with legs crossed, showing the idea of crossing or intersecting. From this concrete image, the meaning extended to abstract senses like 'exchange,' 'interact,' and 'hand over.' Modern uses such as 交流 (exchange) and 交通 (traffic) all trace back to this core notion of crossing.
番 — 釆 (animal tracks) on top + 田 (field) below
Originally a pictograph showing animal paw prints (釆) in a field (田), depicting tracks left by beasts. The early meaning related to taking turns or sequences, as tracks come one after another. It later extended to 'foreign' or 'barbarian,' and is now used as a measure word for occurrences or to mean 'number/turn.'