Radical 辶

7 strokes

遲

road 辶 (26a) + ruler 尺 (777a) = late 迟

迟到 (74) chídào be late (for meeting)

Some small boys are playing with a ruler on the road (measuring out a hopscotch pitch) — and they’re going to be late for school. / The fairy chases them off, and wipes the chalk marks off the road with a chapati.

This time the ruler is not a monarch, but a ruler for measuring things. a “meter”, the unit of length, is 公尺 (gōngchǐ) although a more colloquial character for meter is 米 (mǐ, Character 334).