King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “fastball”

直球
zhí qiú
(baseball) fastball; (fig.) (coll.) direct; frank; upfront; blunt

The closest CC-CEDICT match for fastball is 直球 (zhí qiú), defined as: (baseball) fastball; (fig.) (coll.) direct; frank; upfront; 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

直 zhí
straight, vertical; candid, direct, frank
radical 109 ⽬ · 8 strokes
球 qiú
ball, globe, sphere; round
radical 96 ⽟ · 11 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 直球.

WordPinyinMeaning
一直yī zhístraight (in a straight line); continuously; always; all the way through
直接zhí jiēdirectly; direct
直到zhí dàountil
直播zhí bō(TV, radio) to broadcast live; live broadcast
简直 (簡直)jiǎn zhísimply; really
直升机 (直升機)zhí shēng jīhelicopter; measure word: 架 (jià)
全球quán qiúthe whole world; worldwide; global
足球zú qiúsoccer; football; a soccer ball; a football

See also: Japanese symbol for “fastball”.

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.