King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “alive”

活着
huó zhe
Traditional: 活著
alive

The closest CC-CEDICT match for alive is 活着 (huó zhe), defined as: alive.

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

活 huó
to exist, to live, to survive; living, working
radical 85 ⽔ · 9 strokes
着 zhe
to make a move, to take action
radical 109 ⽬ · 12 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “alive”

WordPinyinMeaning
活huóto live; alive

Related words

Other words that share a character with 活着.

WordPinyinMeaning
活动 (活動)huó dòngto exercise; to move about; to work out; shaky; unsteady; loose (tooth etc)
生活shēng huóto live; life
活跃 (活躍)huó yuèactive; lively
活力huó lìenergy; vitality
灵活 (靈活)líng huóflexible; nimble
随着 (隨著)suí zhealong with; in the wake of
有着 (有著)yǒu zheto have; to possess
接着 (接著)jiē zheto catch and hold on; to continue

See also: Japanese symbol for “alive”.

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.

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