King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “difficulties”

苦衷
kǔ zhōng
secret trouble; sorrow; difficulties

The closest CC-CEDICT match for difficulties is 苦衷 (kǔ zhōng), defined as: secret trouble; sorrow; difficulties.

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

苦 kǔ
bitter; hardship, suffering
radical 140 ⾋ · 9 strokes
衷 zhōng
sincere, heartfelt
radical 145 ⾐ · 10 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 苦衷.

WordPinyinMeaning
痛苦tòng kǔpain; suffering
辛苦xīn kǔexhausting; hard
苦难 (苦難)kǔ nànsuffering
艰苦 (艱苦)jiān kǔdifficult; hard
苦恼 (苦惱)kǔ nǎovexed; distressed
受苦shòu kǔto suffer hardship
热衷 (熱衷)rè zhōngto feel strongly about; to be fond of
初衷chū zhōngoriginal intention

See also: Japanese symbol for “difficulties”.

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.