King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “brutal”

残暴
cán bào
Traditional: 殘暴
brutal; vicious; ruthless

The closest CC-CEDICT match for brutal is 残暴 (cán bào), defined as: brutal; vicious; ruthless.

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

残 cán
to injure, to ruin, to spoil; cruel, oppressive, savage; disabled, inc
radical 78 ⽍ · 9 strokes
暴 bào
violent, brutal, tyrannical
radical 72 ⽇ · 15 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “brutal”

WordPinyinMeaning
虐nüè(bound form) brutal; oppressive; harsh; (literary) disaster; catastrophe
暴虐bào nüèbrutal; tyrannical
兽性 (獸性)shòu xìngbrutal
凶暴xiōng bàobrutal
横暴 (橫暴)hèng bàobrutal; violent

Related words

Other words that share a character with 残暴.

WordPinyinMeaning
残酷 (殘酷)cán kùcruel; harsh; merciless
残忍 (殘忍)cán rěncruel; merciless; ruthless
残疾 (殘疾)cán jídisabled; handicapped
残疾人 (殘疾人)cán jí réndisabled person
残留 (殘留)cán liúto remain; to be left over; residual; remnant
暴力bào lìviolence; force
风暴 (風暴)fēng bàostorm; violent commotion
暴露bào lùto expose; to reveal

See also: Japanese symbol for “brutal”.

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.

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