King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “ad”

公元
gōng yuán
CE (Common Era); Christian Era; AD (Anno Domini)

The closest CC-CEDICT match for ad is 公元 (gōng yuán), defined as: CE (Common Era); Christian Era; AD (Anno Domini).

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

公 gōng
fair, equitable; public; duke
radical 12 ⼋ · 4 strokes
元 yuán
first; dollar; origin; head
radical 10 ⼉ · 4 strokes

Other Chinese words for “ad”

WordPinyinMeaning
广子 (廣子)guǎng zi(slang) advertisement; ad
西元xī yuán(Tw) Christian era; Gregorian calendar

Related words

Other words that share a character with 公元.

WordPinyinMeaning
公司gōng sīcompany; firm; corporation; measure word: 家 (jiā)
公开 (公開)gōng kāiopen; overt; public; to make public; to release
公民gōng míncitizen
公布 (公佈)gōng bùvariant of 公布 (gōng bù)
公里gōng lǐkilometer
美元měi yuánAmerican dollar; US dollar
多元duō yuánpoly-; multi-
元素yuán sùelement (key component of sth); (chemistry) element

See also: Japanese symbol for “ad”.

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.