Chinese symbol for “heaven”
上天
shàng tiān
Heaven; Providence; God; the sky above; to fly skywards; (euphemism) to die; to pass away
The closest CC-CEDICT match for heaven is 上天 (shàng tiān), defined as: Heaven; Providence; God; the sky above; to fly skywards; (euphemism) to die; to pass away; the previous day (or days).
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
Other Chinese words for “heaven”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 上苍 (上蒼) | shàng cāng | Heaven; God |
| 天 | tiān | day; sky |
| 天界 | tiān jiè | heaven |
| 天公 | tiān gōng | heaven; lord of heaven |
| 旻 | mín | heaven |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 上天.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 以上 | yǐ shàng | that level or higher; that amount or more; the above-mentioned |
| 晚上 | wǎn shang | evening; night |
| 身上 | shēn shang | on the body; at hand |
| 加上 | jiā shàng | to add; plus; in addition; moreover |
| 上面 | shàng miàn | on top of; above-mentioned |
| 实际上 (實際上) | shí jì shàng | in fact; in reality |
| 今天 | jīn tiān | today; the present time; now |
| 每天 | měi tiān | every day |
See also: Japanese symbol for “heaven”.
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.