King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “ballast”

道碴
dào chá
(railway) ballast

The closest CC-CEDICT match for ballast is 道碴 (dào chá), defined as: (railway) ballast.

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

道 dào
method, way; path, road
radical 162 ⾡ · 13 strokes
碴 chá
quarrel; fault; a shard of glass
radical 112 ⽯ · 14 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 道碴.

WordPinyinMeaning
知道zhī dàoto know; to become aware of; also pr. [zhi1dao5]
报道 (報道)bào dàoto report (news); report
难道 (難道)nán dàodon't tell me ...; could it be that...?
道路dào lùroad; path
道德dào dévirtue; morality
频道 (頻道)pín dàofrequency; (television) channel
找碴zhǎo chávariant of 找茬 (zhǎo chá)
冰碴bīng cháice shards

See also: Japanese symbol for “ballast”.

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.