King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “joke”

笑话
xiào hua
Traditional: 笑話
joke; jest; to laugh at; to mock; ridiculous; absurd

The closest CC-CEDICT match for joke is 笑话 (xiào hua), defined as: joke; jest; to laugh at; to mock; ridiculous; absurd.

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

笑 xiào
to smile, to laugh; to giggle; to snicker
radical 118 ⽵ · 10 strokes
话 hua
talk, speech; language, dialect
radical 149 ⾔ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “joke”

WordPinyinMeaning
玩笑wán xiàoto joke; joke
开玩笑 (開玩笑)kāi wán xiàoto play a joke; to make fun of; to joke
打哈哈dǎ hā hato joke; to laugh insincerely
逗dòuto tease (playfully); to entice; (coll.) to joke
谐戏 (諧戲)xié xìto joke

Related words

Other words that share a character with 笑话.

WordPinyinMeaning
微笑wēi xiàosmile; 个 (gè),丝 (sī)
开玩笑 (開玩笑)kāi wán xiàoto play a joke; to make fun of; to joke
可笑kě xiàofunny; ridiculous
搞笑gǎo xiàoto get people to laugh; funny
嘲笑cháo xiàoto jeer at; to deride
电话 (電話)diàn huàtelephone; measure word: 部 (bù)
的话 (的話)de huàif (coming after a conditional clause)
说话 (說話)shuō huàto speak; to say

See also: Japanese symbol for “joke”.

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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