Help with French

[Dangun]

I am trying to read some academic history research on SE Asia... in French.
I just wondered whether the French word "char" is readable as anything other than the English "chariot." For example, does it ever mean "cart"?

For example...
Il represente en effet un cavalier entre deux roues qui figurent un char.
or...
Le socle tout entier est la représentation d'un char par des rabattements naïfs.

Thanks in advance.

[Swampster]

Yes, char can mean cart.

See, par example, https://fr.dreamstime.com/image-%C3%A9ditorial-l-agriculteur-sur-un-char-tir%C3%A9-par-des-vaches-dans-la-campagne-de-pindaya-image46920140

[Dangun]

Yes, char can mean cart.

Thanks.
A couple of online French/English dictionaries only gave chariot and I was suspicious.

[Patrick Waterson]

A couple of online French/English dictionaries only gave chariot and I was suspicious.

And rightly so.

Incidentally, if you ever encounter chariot in French, it means a trolley, a wagon or the carriage (moving cylinder and associated structure) on a typewriter.

[Erpingham]

From the OED.

Etymology: < Old French chariot (13th cent. in Littré), augmentative of char car n.1 Since the 17th cent. chariot has also taken the place of charet n., the two having been confused in English, though in French chariot and charrette are quite distinct, the former being generally 4-wheeled, the latter 2-wheeled;

and from charet

In modern French charrette is a two-wheeled vehicle with two shafts, while chariot is four-wheeled. This distinction may be historical, and may have existed originally in English also; but here, after the shifting of the stress to the first syllable, and consequent obscuration of the termination, charet(te and chariot were confounded and treated as synonymous; and the former became obsolete before the middle of the 17th cent., though it virtually survived as a pronunciation of chariot till the 19th cent. With six exceptions charet occurs uniformly in the Bible of 1611, but has been everywhere changed in later editions to chariot.(Show Less)