引っ越し
ひっこし · hikkoshi · JLPT N2 · noun
dwelling
📦 引っ越し = 引く pull + 越す cross over: pull your things across to a new home
Both parts are common verbs: 引く means to pull or drag, and 越す means to cross over or move past a boundary. Together they describe dragging your household across to a new place.
引 — bow 弓 + vertical stroke 丨
A compound ideograph showing a bow 弓 with a vertical line 丨 representing the drawn bowstring. The original meaning was 'to draw a bow,' which extended to 'pull,' 'lead,' 'guide,' and 'cite.' The vertical stroke depicts the action of pulling the string back.
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.