King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “melanin”

黑素
hēi sù
melanin; black pigment

The closest CC-CEDICT match for melanin is 黑素 (hēi sù), defined as: melanin; black pigment.

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

黑 hēi
black; dark; evil, sinister
radical 203 ⿊ · 12 strokes
素 sù
plain; white; vegetarian; formerly; normally
radical 120 ⽷ · 10 strokes

Other Chinese words for “melanin”

WordPinyinMeaning
黑色素hēi sè sùblack pigment; melanin

Related words

Other words that share a character with 黑素.

WordPinyinMeaning
黑人hēi rénblack person; an illegal
黑暗hēi àndark; darkly
黑色hēi sèblack
黑白hēi báiblack and white; right and wrong
黑客hēi kè(computing) (loanword) hacker
黑帮 (黑幫)hēi bāngbunch of gangsters; criminal gang
因素yīn sùelement; factor
素质 (素質)sù zhìinner quality; basic essence

See also: Japanese symbol for “melanin”.

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.