King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “efficiently”

三下五除二
sān xià wǔ chú èr
three, set five remove two (abacus rule); efficiently; quickly and easily

The closest CC-CEDICT match for efficiently is 三下五除二 (sān xià wǔ chú èr), defined as: three, set five remove two (abacus rule); efficiently; quickly and easily.

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

三 sān
three
radical 1 ⼀ · 3 strokes
下 xià
below, underneath; inferior; to bring down; next
radical 1 ⼀ · 3 strokes
五 wǔ
five; surname
radical 7 ⼆ · 4 strokes
除 chú
to eliminate, to remove, to wipe out
radical 170 ⾩ · 10 strokes
二 èr
two; twice
radical 7 ⼆ · 2 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 三下五除二.

WordPinyinMeaning
三星sān xīngthree major stars of the Three Stars 参宿 (Shēn xiù) Chinese constellation; the belt of Orion
三次sān cìthird; three times
三级 (三級)sān jígrade 3; third class
十三shí sānthirteen; 13
三分sān fēnsomewhat; to some degree
第三方dì sān fāngthird party
一下yī xià(after a verb) a bit; a little (indicating brief duration, or softening the tone, or suggesting giving sth a try); all at once; suddenly
以下yǐ xiàthat level or lower; that amount or less
十五shí wǔfifteen; 15
除了chú leapart from; besides; in addition to (used to exclude, as in 除了他,誰也沒來|除了他,谁也没来[chu2 le5 ta1 , shei2 ye3 mei2 lai2] "apart from him, nobody ca
第二dì èrsecond; number two

See also: Japanese symbol for “efficiently”.

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.