Chinese symbol for “male”
男
nán
(bound form) male; baron, the lowest of the five ranks of nobility 五等爵位 (wǔ děng jué wèi)
The closest CC-CEDICT match for male is 男 (nán), defined as: (bound form) male; baron, the lowest of the five ranks of nobility 五等爵位 (wǔ děng jué wèi).
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 “male”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 雄 | xióng | male; staminate |
| 佬 | lǎo | male; man (Cantonese) |
| 雄性 | xióng xìng | male |
| 男子 | nán zǐ | a man; a male |
| 牡 | mǔ | (of a bird, animal or plant) male; key |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 男.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 男人 | nán rén | a man; a male |
| 男子 | nán zǐ | a man; a male |
| 男性 | nán xìng | the male sex; a male |
| 男女 | nán nǚ | male-female; male and female |
| 男孩 | nán hái | boy |
| 男朋友 | nán péng you | boyfriend |
See also: Japanese symbol for “male”.
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.