King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “afterlife”

来世
lái shì
Traditional: 來世
afterlife; next life

The closest CC-CEDICT match for afterlife is 来世 (lái shì), defined as: afterlife; next life.

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

来 lái
to arrive, to come, to return; in the future, later on
radical 75 ⽊ · 7 strokes
世 shì
generation, era, age; world
radical 1 ⼀ · 5 strokes

Traditional forms

Related words

Other words that share a character with 来世.

WordPinyinMeaning
起来 (起來)qǐ laito stand up; to get up; also pr. [qi3lai2]
出来 (出來)chū láito come out; to appear
来自 (來自)lái zìto come from (a place); From: (in email header)
以来 (以來)yǐ láisince (used after a specified time or event)
世界shì jièworld
世纪 (世紀)shì jìcentury
全世界quán shì jièworldwide; entire world
去世qù shìto pass away; to die

See also: Japanese symbol for “afterlife”.

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.