Chinese symbol for “dry”
干
gān
Traditional: 乾
dry; dried food; empty; hollow; taken in to nominal kinship; adoptive; foster
The closest CC-CEDICT match for dry is 干 (gān), defined as: dry; dried food; empty; hollow; taken in to nominal kinship; adoptive; foster; futile; in vain; (dialect) rude; blunt.
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
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “dry”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 干燥 (乾燥) | gān zào | (of weather, climate, soil etc) dry; arid; (of skin, mouth etc) dry |
| 燥 | zào | dry; parched; impatient; vexed |
| 干巴巴 (乾巴巴) | gān bā bā | dry; parched |
| 涸 | hé | to dry; to dry up |
| 干旱 (乾旱) | gān hàn | drought; (of land, climate etc) arid; dry |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 干.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 干部 (幹部) | gàn bù | cadre; official |
| 干净 (乾淨) | gān jìng | clean; neat |
| 干嘛 (幹嘛) | gàn má | what are you doing?; whatever for? |
| 若干 | ruò gān | a certain number or amount; how many? |
| 干扰 (干擾) | gān rǎo | to disturb; to interfere |
| 干涉 | gān shè | to interfere; to meddle |
See also: Japanese symbol for “dry”.
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.