King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “manipulation”

操弄
cāo nòng
to manipulate; manipulation

The closest CC-CEDICT match for manipulation is 操弄 (cāo nòng), defined as: to manipulate; manipulation.

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

操 cāo
to conduct, to manage, to run
radical 64 ⼿ · 16 strokes
弄 nòng
to do; to mock, to tease; to play with
radical 55 ⼶ · 7 strokes

Other Chinese words for “manipulation”

WordPinyinMeaning
手活shǒu huómanipulation (e.g. ball handling in sport); hand job

Related words

Other words that share a character with 操弄.

WordPinyinMeaning
操作cāo zuòto work; to operate
操纵 (操縱)cāo zòngto operate; to control
操控cāo kòngto control; to manipulate
操作系统 (操作系統)cāo zuò xì tǒngoperating system
体操 (體操)tǐ cāogymnastic; gymnastics
我操wǒ cào(substitute for 我肏 (wǒ cào)) fuck; WTF
玩弄wán nòngto play with; to toy with
愚弄yú nòngto make a fool out of; to fool

See also: Japanese symbol for “manipulation”.

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.