King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “harbinger”

先声
xiān shēng
Traditional: 先聲
herald; precursor; harbinger

The closest CC-CEDICT match for harbinger is 先声 (xiān shēng), defined as: herald; precursor; harbinger.

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

先 xiān
first, former, previous
radical 10 ⼉ · 6 strokes
声 shēng
sound, noise; voice, tone, music
radical 33 ⼠ · 7 strokes

Traditional forms

Related words

Other words that share a character with 先声.

WordPinyinMeaning
先生xiān shengteacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.)
首先shǒu xiānfirst of all; in the first place
先进 (先進)xiān jìnsophisticated; advanced (technology etc); meritorious; exemplary (deeds etc)
先后 (先後)xiān hòuearly or late; first and last; priority; in succession; one after another
优先 (優先)yōu xiānto have priority; to take precedence
领先 (領先)lǐng xiānto lead; to be in front
声音 (聲音)shēng yīnsound; voice
声明 (聲明)shēng míngto state; to declare

See also: Japanese symbol for “harbinger”.

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.