King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “illegible”

潦草
liáo cǎo
slipshod; careless; slovenly; (of handwriting) scrawly; illegible

The closest CC-CEDICT match for illegible is 潦草 (liáo cǎo), defined as: slipshod; careless; slovenly; (of handwriting) scrawly; illegible.

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

潦 liáo
to flood; puddle; dejected, careless
radical 85 ⽔ · 15 strokes
草 cǎo
grass, herbs; straw, thatch
radical 140 ⾋ · 10 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 潦草.

WordPinyinMeaning
潦倒liáo dǎodown on one's luck; in straitened circumstances; disappointed; frustrated
穷困潦倒 (窮困潦倒)qióng kùn liáo dǎo(idiom) to live in poverty and despair; down and out; destitute and without hope
穷愁潦倒 (窮愁潦倒)qióng chóu liáo dǎoimpoverished and dejected; wretched and penniless
贫穷潦倒 (貧窮潦倒)pín qióng liáo dǎodestitute; poverty-stricken
草案cǎo àndraft (legislation, proposal etc)
草原cǎo yuángrassland; prairie
烟草 (煙草)yān cǎotobacco
起草qǐ cǎoto make a draft; to draw up (plans)

See also: Japanese symbol for “illegible”.

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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