King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “cough”

咳嗽
ké sou
to cough; 阵 (zhèn)

The closest CC-CEDICT match for cough is 咳嗽 (ké sou), defined as: to cough; 阵 (zhèn).

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

咳 ké
to cough
radical 30 ⼝ · 9 strokes
嗽 sou
to gargle; to cough; to clear the throat
radical 30 ⼝ · 14 strokes

Other Chinese words for “cough”

WordPinyinMeaning
咳kécough
嗽sòu(bound form) to cough
欬kàito cough
咳呛 (咳嗆)ké qiàng(dialect) to cough

Related words

Other words that share a character with 咳嗽.

WordPinyinMeaning
止咳zhǐ kéto suppress coughing
百日咳bǎi rì kéwhooping cough; pertussis
干咳 (乾咳)gān kéto cough without phlegm; a dry cough
咳血ké xiěto cough up blood
咳痰ké tánto cough up phlegm; to expectorate

See also: Japanese symbol for “cough”.

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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