Chinese symbol for “backwater”
死水
sǐ shuǐ
stagnant water; backwater
The closest CC-CEDICT match for backwater is 死水 (sǐ shuǐ), defined as: stagnant water; backwater.
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
Related words
Other words that share a character with 死水.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 死亡 | sǐ wáng | to die; death |
| 杀死 (殺死) | shā sǐ | to kill |
| 死刑 | sǐ xíng | death penalty; capital punishment |
| 死者 | sǐ zhě | the dead; the deceased |
| 死去 | sǐ qù | to die |
| 打死 | dǎ sǐ | to kill; to beat to death |
| 水平 | shuǐ píng | horizontal; level; a standard; a level (of ability, development etc) |
| 水果 | shuǐ guǒ | fruit |
See also: Japanese symbol for “backwater”.
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.