King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “catalyze”

催化
cuī huà
to catalyze (a reaction); catalysis

The closest CC-CEDICT match for catalyze is 催化 (cuī huà), defined as: to catalyze (a reaction); catalysis.

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

催 cuī
to press, to urge
radical 9 ⼈ · 13 strokes
化 huà
to change, to convert, to reform; -ize
radical 21 ⼔ · 4 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 催化.

WordPinyinMeaning
催眠cuī miánto lull to sleep; to hypnotize
催化剂 (催化劑)cuī huà jìcatalyst
催生cuī shēngto pressure a younger relative to hurry up and have a baby; (obstetrics) to induce labor
催促cuī cùto urge
催泪弹 (催淚彈)cuī lèi dàntear bomb; tear-gas grenade
文化wén huàculture; civilization
变化 (變化)biàn huà(intransitive) to change; to vary; change; variation
现代化 (現代化)xiàn dài huàmodernization; 个 (gè)

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.