止まる
とまる · tomaru · JLPT N5 · verb-godan
to come to a halt
🛑 止 = a foot planted in place; tomaru: the car stops, to-MAH-ru, at the stop mark
止 began as a drawing of a footprint: a foot set down and not moving, hence stop. It is the same kanji painted on Japanese roads as 止まれ (tomare, STOP). Intransitive: the thing stops by itself; 止める (tomeru) is to stop something.
止 — pictograph of a foot/toe
止 originally depicted a human foot with toes, shown as a footprint on the ground. From this concrete image of a foot it came to mean 'to stop' or 'halt' — the place where a step ends. It also serves as a component in many characters relating to feet, walking, or stopping, such as 步 and 正.