King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “inadequate”

不够
bù gòu
Traditional: 不夠
not enough; insufficient; inadequate

The closest CC-CEDICT match for inadequate is 不够 (bù gòu), defined as: not enough; insufficient; inadequate.

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

不 bù
no, not, un-; negative prefix
radical 1 ⼀ · 4 strokes
够 gòu
enough, adequate; to reach, to attain; to pass muster
radical 36 ⼣ · 11 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “inadequate”

WordPinyinMeaning
不足bù zúinsufficient; lacking
贫 (貧)pínpoor; inadequate
不适当 (不適當)bù shì dànginadequate; unfit
欠妥qiàn tuǒimproper; inappropriate

Related words

Other words that share a character with 不够.

WordPinyinMeaning
不是bù shìno; is not
不能bù néngcannot; must not
不会 (不會)bù huìimprobable; unlikely
不过 (不過)bù guòonly; merely
不同bù tóngdifferent; distinct
能够 (能夠)néng gòuto be capable of; to be able to
足够 (足夠)zú gòuenough; sufficient
有够 (有夠)yǒu gòuvery; extremely

See also: Japanese symbol for “inadequate”.

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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