Chinese symbol for “commerce”
商
shāng
commerce; merchant; dealer; to consult
The closest CC-CEDICT match for commerce is 商 (shāng), defined as: commerce; merchant; dealer; to consult; 2nd note in pentatonic scale; quotient (as in 智商 (zhì shāng), intelligence quotient).
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
Other Chinese words for “commerce”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 贸 (貿) | mào | commerce; trade |
| 商业 (商業) | shāng yè | business; trade |
| 商务 (商務) | shāng wù | commercial affairs; commercial |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 商.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 商业 (商業) | shāng yè | business; trade |
| 商品 | shāng pǐn | commodity; goods; merchandise; measure word: 件 (jiàn) |
| 商店 | shāng diàn | store; shop; measure word: 家 (jiā) |
| 商人 | shāng rén | merchant; businessman |
| 协商 (協商) | xié shāng | to consult with; to talk things over |
| 商务 (商務) | shāng wù | commercial affairs; commercial |
See also: Japanese symbol for “commerce”.
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.