代る
かわる · kawaru · JLPT N3 · verb-godan
to take the place of
代 = person 亻 + post-marker 弋: someone steps in to hold your post
Same 代 as in 交代 (taking turns) and 代わり (a substitute). Sound hook: kawaru sounds like car-war-oo, a pit-stop driver swap where a fresh driver takes the place of the tired one.
代 — person radical 亻 + 弋 (stake/dart, phonetic)
代 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 亻 (person) gives the meaning and 弋 supplies the sound. The original sense was one person taking the place of another, which broadened to 'substitute,' 'replace,' and then 'generation' or 'era' — successive groups of people replacing the previous.