Chinese symbol for “afraid”
恐
kǒng
afraid; frightened; to fear
The closest CC-CEDICT match for afraid is 恐 (kǒng), defined as: afraid; frightened; to fear.
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
Other Chinese words for “afraid”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 危惧 (危懼) | wēi jù | afraid; apprehensive |
| 生怕 | shēng pà | to fear; afraid |
| 凛 (凜) | lǐn | cold; to shiver with cold |
| 怖 | bù | terror; terrified |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 恐.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 恐怖 | kǒng bù | terrible; frightful |
| 恐惧 (恐懼) | kǒng jù | fear; dread; to fear; to dread |
| 恐怕 | kǒng pà | fear; to dread |
| 恐怖主义 (恐怖主義) | kǒng bù zhǔ yì | terrorism |
| 反恐 | fǎn kǒng | anti-terrorism; to fight against terrorism |
| 恐慌 | kǒng huāng | panic; panicky |
See also: Japanese symbol for “afraid”.
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.