Chinese symbol for “color”
颜色
yán sè
Traditional: 顏色
color; countenance; appearance; facial expression
The closest CC-CEDICT match for color is 颜色 (yán sè), defined as: color; countenance; appearance; facial expression; pigment; dyestuff.
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 “color”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 色 | sè | color; 种 (zhǒng) |
| 色 | shǎi | (coll.) color; used in 色子 (shǎi zi) |
| 采 | cǎi | color; complexion |
| 彩 | cǎi | (bright) color; variety |
| 彩色 | cǎi sè | color; multicolored |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 颜色.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 颜料 (顏料) | yán liào | paint; dye |
| 颜面 (顏面) | yán miàn | face; prestige |
| 容颜 (容顏) | róng yán | mien; complexion |
| 颜值 (顏值) | yán zhí | attractiveness index (rating of how good-looking sb is) |
| 颜射 (顏射) | yán shè | to ejaculate onto sb's face |
| 角色 | jué sè | role; part (in a play or movie etc); also pr. [jiao3se4] |
| 特色 | tè sè | a characteristic; a distinctive feature or quality |
| 绿色 (綠色) | lǜ sè | green |
See also: Japanese symbol for “color”.
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.