King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “keep”

保持
bǎo chí
to keep; to maintain; to hold; to preserve

The closest CC-CEDICT match for keep is 保持 (bǎo chí), defined as: to keep; to maintain; to hold; to preserve.

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

保 bǎo
to safeguard, to protect, to defend, to care for
radical 9 ⼈ · 9 strokes
持 chí
to hold, to support, to sustain
radical 64 ⼿ · 9 strokes

Other Chinese words for “keep”

WordPinyinMeaning
维持 (維持)wéi chíto keep; to maintain; to preserve
保留bǎo liúto keep; to retain
保有bǎo yǒuto keep; to retain
留存liú cúnto keep; to preserve
保存bǎo cúnto conserve; to preserve; to keep; to store; (computing) to save (a file etc)

Related words

Other words that share a character with 保持.

WordPinyinMeaning
保护 (保護)bǎo hùto protect; to defend
保证 (保證)bǎo zhèngguarantee; to guarantee
保障bǎo zhàngto ensure; to guarantee
确保 (確保)què bǎoto ensure; to guarantee
保险 (保險)bǎo xiǎninsurance; to insure
支持zhī chíto be in favor of; to support
坚持 (堅持)jiān chíto persevere with; to persist in
持续 (持續)chí xùto continue; to last; to persist

See also: Japanese symbol for “keep”.

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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