Chinese symbol for “adopted”
义
yì
Traditional: 義
justice; righteousness; meaning; foster (father etc)
The closest CC-CEDICT match for adopted is 义 (yì), defined as: justice; righteousness; meaning; foster (father etc); adopted; artificial (tooth, limb etc).
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
Traditional forms
Related words
Other words that share a character with 义.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 意义 (意義) | yì yì | sense; meaning |
| 主义 (主義) | zhǔ yì | -ism; ideology |
| 社会主义 (社會主義) | shè huì zhǔ yì | socialism |
| 正义 (正義) | zhèng yì | justice; righteousness; just; righteous |
| 定义 (定義) | dìng yì | definition; to define |
| 名义 (名義) | míng yì | name; titular |
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.