Chinese symbol for “initial”
初步
chū bù
initial; preliminary; tentative
The closest CC-CEDICT match for initial is 初步 (chū bù), defined as: initial; preliminary; tentative.
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
Other Chinese words for “initial”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 初始 | chū shǐ | initial; starting (point) |
| 原初 | yuán chū | initial; original |
| 最初 | zuì chū | first; primary |
| 头文字 (頭文字) | tóu wén zì | initial; first letter of word (in Latin script) |
| 序 | xù | (bound form) order; sequence; (bound form) introductory; initial |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 初步.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 当初 (當初) | dāng chū | at that time; originally |
| 初期 | chū qī | initial stage; beginning period |
| 最初 | zuì chū | first; primary |
| 年初 | nián chū | beginning of the year |
| 初中 | chū zhōng | junior high school (abbr. for 初级中学 (chū jí zhōng xué)) |
| 进一步 (進一步) | jìn yī bù | to go a step further; (develop, understand, improve etc) more; further |
| 进步 (進步) | jìn bù | progress; improvement; to improve; to progress |
| 逐步 | zhú bù | progressively; step by step |
See also: Japanese symbol for “initial”.
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.