King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “frustrate”

挫折
cuò zhé
setback; reverse; check; defeat

The closest CC-CEDICT match for frustrate is 挫折 (cuò zhé), defined as: setback; reverse; check; defeat; frustration; disappointment.

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

挫 cuò
to check, to obstruct, to push down
radical 64 ⼿ · 10 strokes
折 zhé
to break, to snap; to fold, to bend; to bow; humble
radical 64 ⼿ · 7 strokes

Other Chinese words for “frustrate”

WordPinyinMeaning
折挫zhé cuòto frustrate; to inhibit

Related words

Other words that share a character with 挫折.

WordPinyinMeaning
挫败 (挫敗)cuò bàito thwart; to foil (sb's plans); a setback; a failure; a defeat
受挫shòu cuòthwarted; obstructed
重挫zhòng cuòdevastating setback; slump (in stock market etc)
下挫xià cuò(of sales, prices etc) to fall; to drop
挫折感cuò zhé gǎnfrustration
折磨zhé móto torment; to torture
折腾 (折騰)zhē tengto toss from side to side (e.g. sleeplessly); to repeat sth over and over again
曲折qū zhéwinding; (fig.) complicated

See also: Japanese symbol for “frustrate”.

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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