King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “ability”

才
cái
ability; talent; sb of a certain type; a capable individual; then and only then

The closest CC-CEDICT match for ability is 才 (cái), defined as: ability; talent; sb of a certain type; a capable individual; then and only then; just now; (before an expression of quantity) only.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

才 cái
ability, talent, gift; just, only
radical 64 ⼿ · 3 strokes

Other Chinese words for “ability”

WordPinyinMeaning
本事běn shiability; skill
能耐néng nàiability; capability
能néngcan; to be able to
才干 (才幹)cái gànability; competence
能力néng lìcapability; ability

Related words

Other words that share a character with 才.

WordPinyinMeaning
才能cái néngtalent; ability
人才rén cáitalent; talented person
刚才 (剛才)gāng cáijust now; a moment ago
天才tiān cáitalent; gift
才华 (才華)cái huátalent; measure word: 份 (fèn)

See also: Japanese symbol for “ability”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.

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