King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “desperately”

没命
méi mìng
Traditional: 沒命
to lose one's life; to die; recklessly; desperately

The closest CC-CEDICT match for desperately is 没命 (méi mìng), defined as: to lose one's life; to die; recklessly; desperately.

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

没 méi
not, none, gone; to bury; to sink, to drown
radical 85 ⽔ · 7 strokes
命 mìng
life; destiny, fate, luck; an order, instruction
radical 30 ⼝ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “desperately”

WordPinyinMeaning
死命sǐ mìngdoom; death
要死要活yào sǐ yào huóterribly; awfully

Related words

Other words that share a character with 没命.

WordPinyinMeaning
没有 (沒有)méi yǒuhaven't; hasn't
有没有 (有沒有)yǒu méi yǒu(before a noun) Do (you, they etc) have ...?; Is there a ...?
没什么 (沒什麼)méi shén meit doesn't matter; it's nothing; never mind; think nothing of it; it's my pleasure; you're welcome
没错 (沒錯)méi cuòthat's right; sure!
没想到 (沒想到)méi xiǎng dàodidn't expect
没事 (沒事)méi shìit's not important; it's nothing
革命gé mìngto withdraw the mandate of heaven (and transition to a new dynasty) (original meaning); revolution
生命shēng mìnglife (as the characteristic of living beings); living being; creature (条 (tiáo))

See also: Japanese symbol for “desperately”.

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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