King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “competence”

功力
gōng lì
merit; efficacy; competence; skill

The closest CC-CEDICT match for competence is 功力 (gōng lì), defined as: merit; efficacy; competence; skill; power.

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

功 gōng
achievement, good work; merit; service
radical 19 ⼒ · 5 strokes
力 lì
strength, power; capability, influence
radical 19 ⼒ · 2 strokes

Other Chinese words for “competence”

WordPinyinMeaning
才干 (才幹)cái gànability; competence
作证能力 (作證能力)zuò zhèng néng lìcompetence

Related words

Other words that share a character with 功力.

WordPinyinMeaning
成功chéng gōngto succeed; success
功能gōng néngfunction; capability
功夫gōng fuskill; art
功率gōng lǜpower (rate of doing work, measured in watts)
功效gōng xiàoefficacy
功课 (功課)gōng kèhomework; assignment
能力néng lìcapability; ability
努力nǔ lìto make an effort; to try hard; to strive; hard-working; conscientious

See also: Japanese symbol for “competence”.

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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