King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “excavate”

发掘
fā jué
Traditional: 發掘
to excavate; to explore; (fig.) to unearth; to tap into

The closest CC-CEDICT match for excavate is 发掘 (fā jué), defined as: to excavate; to explore; (fig.) to unearth; to tap into.

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

发 fā
to issue, to dispatch, to send out; hair
radical 29 ⼜ · 5 strokes
掘 jué
to dig, to excavate
radical 64 ⼿ · 11 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “excavate”

WordPinyinMeaning
挖掘wā juéto excavate; (lit and fig.) to unearth; to dig into
采掘 (採掘)cǎi juéto excavate; to extract (ore)
挖空wā kōngto excavate; to hollow
开挖 (開挖)kāi wāto dig out; to excavate; to scoop out; to start digging
挖wāto dig; to excavate

Related words

Other words that share a character with 发掘.

WordPinyinMeaning
发展 (發展)fā zhǎndevelopment; growth
发生 (發生)fā shēngto happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises")
发现 (發現)fā xiànto notice; to become aware of; to discover; to find; to detect
开发 (開發)kāi fāto exploit (a resource); to open up (for development); to develop
发布 (發佈)fā bùvariant of 发布 (fā bù)
挖掘wā juéto excavate; (lit and fig.) to unearth; to dig into
挖掘机 (挖掘機)wā jué jīexcavator; excavating machine
采掘 (採掘)cǎi juéto excavate; to extract (ore)

See also: Japanese symbol for “excavate”.

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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