Chinese symbol for “auction”
拍卖
pāi mài
Traditional: 拍賣
to auction; auction sale; to sell at a reduced price
The closest CC-CEDICT match for auction is 拍卖 (pāi mài), defined as: to auction; auction sale; to sell at a reduced price.
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
Other Chinese words for “auction”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 拍卖会 (拍賣會) | pāi mài huì | auction; 场 (chǎng) |
| 竞拍 (競拍) | jìng pāi | to bid (at an auction); auction |
| 招投标 (招投標) | zhāo tóu biāo | bid inviting and bid offering; bidding |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 拍卖.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 拍摄 (拍攝) | pāi shè | to take (a picture); to shoot (a film) |
| 拍照 | pāi zhào | to take a picture |
| 自拍 | zì pāi | to take a picture or video of oneself; to take a selfie; a selfie |
| 偷拍 | tōu pāi | to photograph or film sb without their knowledge or consent |
| 拍片 | pāi piàn | to shoot a film; to have a medical imaging procedure |
| 买卖 (買賣) | mǎi mài | to buy and sell |
| 出卖 (出賣) | chū mài | to offer for sale; to sell; to sell out; to betray |
| 贩卖 (販賣) | fàn mài | to sell; to peddle |
See also: Japanese symbol for “auction”.
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.