King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “cringing”

蜷缩
quán suō
Traditional: 蜷縮
to curl up; to huddle; to cower; cringing

The closest CC-CEDICT match for cringing is 蜷缩 (quán suō), defined as: to curl up; to huddle; to cower; cringing.

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

蜷 quán
to curl one's body; to wriggle like a worm
radical 142 ⾍ · 14 strokes
缩 suō
to withdraw, to shrink, to pull back; abbreviation
radical 120 ⽷ · 14 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “cringing”

WordPinyinMeaning
畏畏缩缩 (畏畏縮縮)wèi wèi suō suōcowering; cringing
趑趄嗫嚅 (趑趄囁嚅)zī jū niè rúfaltering steps, mumbling speech (idiom); hesitant; cringing
趦趄嗫嚅 (趦趄囁嚅)zī jū niè rúfaltering steps; mumbling speech

Related words

Other words that share a character with 蜷缩.

WordPinyinMeaning
蜷曲quán qūtwisted; coiled
蜷伏quán fúto curl up; to lie with knees drawn up
蜷局quán júto curl up; to coil
蜷卧 (蜷臥)quán wòto curl up; to lie curled up
进道若蜷 (進道若蜷)jìn dào ruò quánprogress seems like regress (alternative wording for 进道若退 (jìn dào ruò tuì))
缩短 (縮短)suō duǎnto shorten; to reduce; to curtail
缩小 (縮小)suō xiǎoto reduce; to decrease; to shrink
压缩 (壓縮)yā suōto compress; compression

See also: Japanese symbol for “cringing”.

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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