King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “culprit”

主犯
zhǔ fàn
culprit

The closest CC-CEDICT match for culprit is 主犯 (zhǔ fàn), defined as: culprit.

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

主 zhǔ
to own; to host; master; host; lord
radical 3 ⼂ · 5 strokes
犯 fàn
criminal; to violate, to commit a crime
radical 94 ⽝ · 5 strokes

Other Chinese words for “culprit”

WordPinyinMeaning
真凶 (真兇)zhēn xiōngculprit
人犯rén fàncriminal; culprit
肇事者zhào shì zhěoffender; culprit

Related words

Other words that share a character with 主犯.

WordPinyinMeaning
主要zhǔ yàomain; principal; major; primary
民主mín zhǔdemocracy; democratic
主席zhǔ xíchairperson; premier
主任zhǔ rèndirector; head
主题 (主題)zhǔ títheme; subject
主张 (主張)zhǔ zhāngto advocate; to stand for
犯罪fàn zuìto commit a crime; crime; offense
侵犯qīn fànto infringe on; to encroach on

See also: Japanese symbol for “culprit”.

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.