Chinese symbol for “horse”
马
mǎ
Traditional: 馬
horse; measure word: 匹 (pǐ); horse or cavalry piece in Chinese chess; knight in Western chess
The closest CC-CEDICT match for horse is 马 (mǎ), defined as: horse; measure word: 匹 (pǐ); horse or cavalry piece in Chinese chess; knight in Western chess.
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 “horse”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 马匹 (馬匹) | mǎ pǐ | horse |
| 㐷 (傌) | mǎ | (Chinese chess) horse; knight (on the red side) |
| 騑 | fēi | side horse (in a team of harnessed horses); horse |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 马.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 马上 (馬上) | mǎ shàng | at once; right away |
| 马克 (馬克) | mǎ kè | mark (monetary unit) |
| 马路 (馬路) | mǎ lù | street; road |
| 人马 (人馬) | rén mǎ | men and horses; troops |
| 骑马 (騎馬) | qí mǎ | to ride a horse |
| 宝马 (寶馬) | bǎo mǎ | precious horse |
See also: Japanese symbol for “horse”.
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.