King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “exterior”

外部
wài bù
the outside; (attributive) external; exterior; surface

The closest CC-CEDICT match for exterior is 外部 (wài bù), defined as: the outside; (attributive) external; exterior; surface.

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

外 wài
out, outside, external; foreign; in addition
radical 36 ⼣ · 5 strokes
部 bù
department, ministry; division, unit; part, section
radical 163 ⾢ · 10 strokes

Other Chinese words for “exterior”

WordPinyinMeaning
外面wài miànoutside (also pr. [wai4 mian5] for this sense); surface

Related words

Other words that share a character with 外部.

WordPinyinMeaning
另外lìng wàiadditional; in addition
此外cǐ wàibesides; in addition; moreover; furthermore
外国 (外國)wài guóforeign country
国外 (國外)guó wàiabroad; external (affairs)
海外hǎi wàioverseas; abroad
之外zhī wàioutside; excluding
部分bù fenpart; portion; piece; Taiwan pr. [bu4fen4]
部门 (部門)bù méndepartment; branch

See also: Japanese symbol for “exterior”.

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.