Chinese symbol for “living”
活
huó
to live; alive; living; work
The closest CC-CEDICT match for living is 活 (huó), defined as: to live; alive; living; work; workmanship.
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 “living”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 活生生 | huó shēng shēng | real (people); living (artist) |
| 居家 | jū jiā | to live at home; to stay at home |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 活.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 活动 (活動) | huó dòng | to exercise; to move about; to work out; shaky; unsteady; loose (tooth etc) |
| 生活 | shēng huó | to live; life |
| 活跃 (活躍) | huó yuè | active; lively |
| 活着 (活著) | huó zhe | alive |
| 活力 | huó lì | energy; vitality |
| 灵活 (靈活) | líng huó | flexible; nimble |
See also: Japanese symbol for “living”.
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.