Chinese symbol for “dye”
染
rǎn
to dye; to catch (a disease); to acquire (bad habits etc); to contaminate
The closest CC-CEDICT match for dye is 染 (rǎn), defined as: to dye; to catch (a disease); to acquire (bad habits etc); to contaminate; to add color washes to a painting.
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
Other Chinese words for “dye”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 染色 | rǎn sè | to dye |
| 染料 | rǎn liào | dye |
| 颜料 (顏料) | yán liào | paint; dye |
| 上色 | shàng shǎi | to color (a picture etc); to dye (fabric etc) |
| 擩 | rǔ | to stain; to dye |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 染.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 污染 | wū rǎn | (lit. and fig.) to pollute; to contaminate |
| 感染 | gǎn rǎn | to infect; infection; (fig.) to influence |
| 传染 (傳染) | chuán rǎn | to infect; contagious |
| 渲染 | xuàn rǎn | rendering (computing); to add washes of ink or color to a drawing (Chinese painting) |
| 传染病 (傳染病) | chuán rǎn bìng | infectious disease; contagious disease; communicable disease |
| 污染物 | wū rǎn wù | pollutant |
See also: Japanese symbol for “dye”.
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.