Chinese symbol for “life”
生命
shēng mìng
life (as the characteristic of living beings); living being; creature (条 (tiáo))
The closest CC-CEDICT match for life is 生命 (shēng mìng), defined as: life (as the characteristic of living beings); living being; creature (条 (tiáo)).
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 “life”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 人生 | rén shēng | life (one's time on earth) |
| 命 | mìng | life; fate |
| 世 | shì | life; age |
| 性命 | xìng mìng | life |
| 生平 | shēng píng | life (a person's whole life); in one's entire life |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 生命.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 发生 (發生) | fā shēng | to happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises") |
| 生活 | shēng huó | to live; life |
| 学生 (學生) | xué sheng | student; schoolchild |
| 生产 (生產) | shēng chǎn | to produce; to manufacture; to give birth to a child |
| 产生 (產生) | chǎn shēng | to arise; to come into being; to come about; to give rise to; to bring into being; to bring about; to produce; to engender; to generate |
| 先生 | xiān sheng | teacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.) |
| 革命 | gé mìng | to withdraw the mandate of heaven (and transition to a new dynasty) (original meaning); revolution |
| 命令 | mìng lìng | order; command |
See also: Japanese symbol for “life”.
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.