0040 前

前

This character means ‘before; front,’ and is pronounced ZEN or mae in Japanese, qián in Chinese. Here’s the archaic version:

The element in the lower left

⺝

here signifies ‘a boat,’ but its modern form looks exactly like some representations of two other characters that were originally different, those for ‘crescent moon’ and ‘flesh.’

The upper element

止

originally signified a foot (toes pointing to the right), and also ‘to advance,’ though, paradoxically, it now means ‘to stop.’

So, the boat is advancing forward, to the front, with the aid of two poles

刂,

although the idea of poles is just a mnemonic device, since that character 刂is actually a version of

刀,

meaning ‘knife,’ compressed for fitting into complex characters.