汽船

きせん · kisen · JLPT N1 · noun

steamer

🚢 汽 = steam, 船 = ship: steam + ship = きせん (kisen), a steamship

汽 (ki) means steam and 船 (sen) means ship. Together they name a ship powered by a steam engine, the same two parts as 汽車 (kisha), steam train.

船 — boat radical 舟 + 㕣 (phonetic)
船 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The left side 舟 depicts a boat and gives the meaning, while the right side 㕣 originally suggested the sound. Together they refer to a ship or vessel, a meaning that has stayed stable since early seal script.

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