軌 means “track, rut, orbit”

き · ki

Also: wheel, model

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

キ

JLPT N1 · Taught in secondary school · 9 strokes

The story

A cart (車) and nine (九): picture the ruts a cart's wheels wear into a dirt road. 軌 is a track: satellites follow a 軌道, orbit, a business 軌道に乗る when it gets on track, and 常軌を逸する is to go right off the rails.

Used in 軌道 (kidou, orbit/track), 軌跡 (kiseki, trajectory/path), and 常軌 (jouki, normal course)

More from Routes & Returns

• 逸 deviate
• 搬 carry
• 循 circulate
• 旋 revolve
• 迭 replace
• 遷 move
• 遡 go upstream
• 臨 face
• 還 return
• 至 reach
• 滞 stagnate
• 沿 run along

Learn 軌 and more kanji free on Fuji Learning · All kanji

Readings from KANJIDIC2, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA.