King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “necessary”

必要
bì yào
necessary; essential; indispensable; required

The closest CC-CEDICT match for necessary is 必要 (bì yào), defined as: necessary; essential; indispensable; required.

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

必 bì
surely, certainly; must; will
radical 61 ⼼ · 5 strokes
要 yào
essential, necessary; to ask for; to coerce; to demand
radical 146 ⾑ · 9 strokes

Other Chinese words for “necessary”

WordPinyinMeaning
不可或缺bù kě huò quēnecessary; must have
先决 (先決)xiān juéprerequisite; necessary
所需suǒ xūnecessary (for); required

Related words

Other words that share a character with 必要.

WordPinyinMeaning
必须 (必須)bì xūmust; to have to
必然bì ráninevitable; certain
不必bù bìneed not; does not have to
未必wèi bìnot necessarily; maybe not
必定bì dìngto be bound to; to be sure to
需要xū yàoto need; to want; to demand; to require; needs
主要zhǔ yàomain; principal; major; primary
重要zhòng yàoimportant; significant; major

See also: Japanese symbol for “necessary”.

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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