Chinese symbol for “awkward”
尴尬
gān gà
Traditional: 尷尬
awkward; embarrassed
The closest CC-CEDICT match for awkward is 尴尬 (gān gà), defined as: awkward; embarrassed.
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 “awkward”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 别扭 (彆扭) | biè niu | awkward; difficult |
| 下不来 (下不來) | xià bù lái | awkward; embarrassed |
| 拙 | zhuō | awkward; clumsy |
| 粗笨 | cū bèn | awkward; clumsy |
| 生硬 | shēng yìng | rigid; stiff; lacking naturalness or smoothness; awkward; forced |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 尴尬.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 尬意 | gà yì | (Tw) to like; to prefer |
| 尬笑 | gà xiào | (coll.) to laugh or smile out of awkwardness |
| 尬聊 | gà liáo | (slang) awkward conversation; to have a cringeworthy conversation |
| 尬舞 | gà wǔ | (slang) to battle each other in street dancing (derived from Taiwanese 較, which sounds similar to Mandarin 尬 (gà)); (slang) to perform weird |
| 尬电 (尬電) | gà diàn | (Tw) (Internet slang) (loanword) goddamn |
See also: Japanese symbol for “awkward”.
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.