CJK Unified Ideograph-8Eda

In Hong Kong Cantonese, 軚 names the steering wheel or steering.

The character is older than the car. No single inventor is documented: the earliest evidence is the Eastern Han dictionary 說文解字, where the related form 軑 is defined as a chariot-wheel fitting, a cap at the axle's end; later dictionaries also give “wheel.” Its original job was naming horse-drawn vehicle hardware.

軚 is the documented variant form, not a new symbol invented for automobiles. Modern Cantonese carries that vehicle vocabulary into 軚盤 “steering wheel,” 左軚車 “left-hand-drive car,” and 轉軚 “turn the wheel.” In Mandarin-facing usage, 方向盤 is the usual term; 舵盤 is a parallel Hong Kong term, not a proven descendant of 軚.

Why can 軚 also mean a tyre?

It is a separate Cantonese reading, so the surrounding word decides.

In the steering sense, dictionaries give taai5 and taai3. A separate taai1 entry uses 軚 alongside 呔 for the rubber tyre around a wheel. Thus 軚盤 points to steering, while 呔鈴 or 車呔 points to tyre and wheel-rim talk. The character alone does not settle the reading.

If a Hong Kong Cantonese writer sends 軚 in a driving message, read it as ordinary local road vocabulary, not a coded mood. With a Mandarin-oriented recipient, use the compound or 方向盤 when you need zero lookup.