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Sometimes it’s wonderful to find that the Japanese (or the Chinese before them) have coined a word for concepts that don’t exist in English. But occasionally I have the opposite feeling, as with this compound:
脱輪 (datsurin: wheel going off the road, usually into a ditch; wheel flying off its axle) to take off + wheel
Why did they need to coin a word for these disasters? How often do they happen in Japan?!
Last week we investigated the way 輪 (RIN, wa) can mean “ring, circle, loop.” Now we’ll look at its other meanings, starting with “wheel.”
Wheel Power
At the link, you’ll find sentences in which 輪 means “wheel.”
Free-Wheeling Sentences with 輪 …
Here’s my favorite sentence of that type:
一輪車は車輪がーつしかありません。
Ichirinsha wa sharin ga hitotsu shika arimasen.
A unicycle has only one wheel.
This sentence seems to contain its own inverse! If you take just 輪車は車輪, you find a palindrome! And if you remove hiragana from the sentence, you can find an even longer palindrome: 一輪車車輪ー. How cool is that?!
But … back to reality. The first compound is actually 一輪車 (ichirinsha), rather than 輪車. The word 一輪車 can mean either “unicycle” or “wheelbarrow”! I wonder what kind of confusion that causes. There’s a big difference between a unicycle race and a wheelbarrow race!
If that flusters you, here’s a nice bit of logic:
輪止め (wadome: brakes; wheel stops, wedges, blocks, parking curbs) wheel + to stop
You can’t ask for much more clarity of thought. Brakes stop wheels!
But here’s a curious lapse in logic:
輪 (rin: counter for wheels and flowers)
Wheels and flowers?! I understand that a spoked wheel can resemble, say, a daisy. But the sense of scale, the function, and the origins of wheels and flowers are so different that the conflation boggles the mind.
Can this overlap lead to misunderstandings? Maybe not. There’s hardly an instance when context wouldn’t help you distinguish a wheel from a flower. But let me confirm that assertion by testing it in English:
“I brought you a bouquet of wheels.” No.
“I was born in the 1960s to a bunch of wheel children.” No.
“Where have all the wheels gone?” Pff.
“Please don’t pick the wheels.” Nope.
“You need four flowers for balance.” Nah.
“Let’s not reinvent the flower.” Well, OK, maybe that could fly.
How about “flower power” versus “wheel power”? The latter seems viable only because “wheel power” sounds so similar to “willpower.”
In Japanese, however, this odd conflation of meanings can lend ambiguity to words. Take the following:
大輪 (tairin: large wheel; large flower) big + wheel, flower
And in two words where 輪 serves as a counter, the same murkiness appears:
一輪 (ichirin: one wheel; one flower) one + wheel, flower
二輪 (nirin: two wheels; two flowers) two + wheels, flowers
For more fun with numbers and 輪, check the link.
輪 as “Periphery” or “Outline”
An extended meaning of 輪 is “periphery” or “outline,” as in these words:
外輪山 (gairinzan: outer rim of a crater)
outside + periphery + mountainIn concocting this compound, they forgot to mention the fire inside the mountain—that is, the 火 inside 火山 (kazan: volcano, fire + mountain). That has to be one of my favorite compounds!
輪郭 (rinkaku: contours, outlines; features) outline + enclosure
This breakdown reminds me of the previous discussion about boundaries that serve as enclosures.
Bonus Meaning
There’s yet another meaning of 輪, and it involves idiomatic usage:
輪をかける (wa o kakeru: to be even more (so))
Is that enough meanings? Hope this has all been meaningful! Time for your Verbal Logic Quiz!
