Chinese symbol for “delve”

探究

tàn jiū

to investigate; to delve; to probe; to enquire into

The closest CC-CEDICT match for delve is 探究 (tàn jiū), defined as: to investigate; to delve; to probe; to enquire into; to look into.

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

探 tàn

to find, to locate; to grope for, to search for

radical 64 ⼿ · 11 strokes

究 jiū

to dig into, to investigate; actually, after all

radical 116 ⽳ · 7 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 探究.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
探索	tàn suǒ	to explore; to probe
探讨 (探討)	tàn tǎo	to investigate; to probe
侦探 (偵探)	zhēn tàn	detective; to do detective work
探测 (探測)	tàn cè	to probe; to survey
探险 (探險)	tàn xiǎn	to explore; to go on an expedition
研究	yán jiū	research; a study
究竟	jiū jìng	to go to the bottom of a matter; after all
研究所	yán jiū suǒ	research institute; graduate studies

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.