King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “hesitating”

讷讷
nè nè
Traditional: 訥訥
(of speech) indistinct; mumbling; hesitating

The closest CC-CEDICT match for hesitating is 讷讷 (nè nè), defined as: (of speech) indistinct; mumbling; hesitating.

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

讷 nè
inarticulate, slow; to mumble, to stammer
radical 149 ⾔ · 6 strokes
讷
讷 nè
inarticulate, slow; to mumble, to stammer
radical 149 ⾔ · 6 strokes

Traditional forms

Related words

Other words that share a character with 讷讷.

WordPinyinMeaning
木讷 (木訥)mù nèwooden and slow of speech; slow-speeched
木讷寡言 (木訥寡言)mù nè guǎ yánhonest and unaffected but not talkative (idiom)
刚毅木讷 (剛毅木訥)gāng yì mù nèresolute and taciturn (idiom)
口讷 (口訥)kǒu nè(literary) inarticulate
讷涩 (訥澀)nè sèclumsy in speech; tongue tied

See also: Japanese symbol for “hesitating”.

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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