範

It is a phono-semantic compound, composed of:

車 (cha, “cart, vehicle”) – originally semantic element, connected with the ritual origin.

笵 (beom, phonetic) – later simplified form with bamboo radical added by analogy.

In ancient times, there was a ritual called 範軷 (beombal), a sacrifice to the road spirit before setting out on a journey. A dog was sacrificed by being run over with a cart, and the cart wheels were stained with its blood as an apotropaic act (warding off misfortune).

Because of this, 車 (“cart”) was originally the true semantic component of 範.

Later, through graphic transformation, 氵 was dropped from 笵, and 車 was placed in the lower left, while 竹 was placed on top. As a result, 範 came to be perceived as a “bamboo character” (with 竹 as radical), and its original ritual/vehicle association disappeared.

Thus, 範 gradually became interchangeable with 笵, and its usage shifted fully to the abstract sense of “law, standard, norm, model.”

In Korean, 범 (範) is very common in scholarly, legal, and moral contexts:

규범 (規範) – rule, standard, norm

모범 (模範) – model, exemplary

범위 (範圍) – scope, range, limits

범례 (範例) – example, precedent