King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “mister”

先生
xiān sheng
teacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.); husband; (dialect) doctor

The closest CC-CEDICT match for mister is 先生 (xiān sheng), defined as: teacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.); husband; (dialect) doctor; measure word: 位 (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

先 xiān
first, former, previous
radical 10 ⼉ · 6 strokes
生 sheng
life, lifetime; birth; growth
radical 100 ⽣ · 5 strokes

Other Chinese words for “mister”

WordPinyinMeaning
密斯脱 (密斯脫)mì sī tuōmister (loanword)

Related words

Other words that share a character with 先生.

WordPinyinMeaning
首先shǒu xiānfirst of all; in the first place
先进 (先進)xiān jìnsophisticated; advanced (technology etc); meritorious; exemplary (deeds etc)
先后 (先後)xiān hòuearly or late; first and last; priority; in succession; one after another
优先 (優先)yōu xiānto have priority; to take precedence
领先 (領先)lǐng xiānto lead; to be in front
发生 (發生)fā shēngto happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises")
生活shēng huóto live; life
学生 (學生)xué shengstudent; schoolchild

See also: Japanese symbol for “mister”.

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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