Chinese symbol for “activate”

激活

jī huó

to activate

The closest CC-CEDICT match for activate is 激活 (jī huó), defined as: to activate.

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

激 jī

to arouse, to incite; acute, sharp; fierce, violent

radical 85 ⽔ · 16 strokes

活 huó

to exist, to live, to survive; living, working

radical 85 ⽔ · 9 strokes

Other Chinese words for “activate”

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
启动 (啟動)	qǐ dòng	to start (a machine); (fig.) to set in motion

Related words

Other words that share a character with 激活.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
刺激	cì jī	to provoke; to irritate; to upset; to stimulate; to excite; irritant
激烈	jī liè	(of competition or fighting) intense; fierce
激动 (激動)	jī dòng	to move emotionally; to stir up (emotions)
激发 (激發)	jī fā	to arouse; to stimulate
激励 (激勵)	jī lì	to encourage; to urge
激情	jī qíng	passion; fervor
活动 (活動)	huó dòng	to exercise; to move about; to work out; shaky; unsteady; loose (tooth etc)
生活	shēng huó	to live; life

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.