Chinese symbol for “barely”
仅
jǐn
Traditional: 僅
barely; only; merely
The closest CC-CEDICT match for barely is 仅 (jǐn), defined as: barely; only; merely.
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 “barely”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 仅仅 (僅僅) | jǐn jǐn | barely; only |
| 刚 (剛) | gāng | (literary) hard; firm; strong; exactly; precisely |
| 甫 | fǔ | (classical) barely; just |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 仅.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 不仅 (不僅) | bù jǐn | not just; not limited to; (as a correlative conjunction) not only (..., but also ...) |
| 仅仅 (僅僅) | jǐn jǐn | barely; only |
| 不仅仅 (不僅僅) | bù jǐn jǐn | not only; not just |
| 仅次于 (僅次於) | jǐn cì yú | second only to ...; ranking behind only ... |
| 不仅如此 (不僅如此) | bù jǐn rú cǐ | not only that, but ... |
| 仅存 (僅存) | jǐn cún | to be the only one(s) remaining; to be the only one(s) surviving |
See also: Japanese symbol for “barely”.
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.