King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “matter”

事
shì
matter; thing; item; work

The closest CC-CEDICT match for matter is 事 (shì), defined as: matter; thing; item; work; affair; measure word: 件 (jiàn), 桩 (zhuāng), 回 (huí).

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

事 shì
affair, matter, business; to serve; accident, incident
radical 6 ⼅ · 8 strokes

Other Chinese words for “matter”

WordPinyinMeaning
物质 (物質)wù zhìmatter; substance
事项 (事項)shì xiàngmatter; item
事情shì qingaffair; matter; thing; business; measure word: 件 (jiàn), 桩 (zhuāng)
务 (務)wùaffair; business
实物 (實物)shí wùmaterial object; concrete object

Related words

Other words that share a character with 事.

WordPinyinMeaning
事件shì jiànincident; event
事情shì qingaffair; matter; thing; business; measure word: 件 (jiàn), 桩 (zhuāng)
故事gù shìold practice
军事 (軍事)jūn shìmilitary affairs; (attributive) military
事实 (事實)shì shífact; 个 (gè)

See also: Japanese symbol for “matter”.

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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