Chinese symbol for “holy”
圣
shèng
Traditional: 聖
(bound form) peerless (in wisdom, moral virtue, skill etc); (bound form) peerless individual; paragon (sage, saint, emperor, master of a skill etc); (bound form) holy; sacred
The closest CC-CEDICT match for holy is 圣 (shèng), defined as: (bound form) peerless (in wisdom, moral virtue, skill etc); (bound form) peerless individual; paragon (sage, saint, emperor, master of a skill etc); (bound form) holy; sacred.
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
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “holy”
Related words
Other words that share a character with 圣.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 神圣 (神聖) | shén shèng | divine; hallow |
| 圣人 (聖人) | shèng rén | sage; the Sage (i.e. Confucius) |
| 圣母 (聖母) | shèng mǔ | goddess |
| 圣地 (聖地) | shèng dì | holy land (of a religion); sacred place |
| 圣殿 (聖殿) | shèng diàn | temple |
| 圣战 (聖戰) | shèng zhàn | Holy war; jihad |
See also: Japanese symbol for “holy”.
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.