King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “originate”

发起
fā qǐ
Traditional: 發起
to originate; to initiate; to launch (an attack, an initiative etc); to start

The closest CC-CEDICT match for originate is 发起 (fā qǐ), defined as: to originate; to initiate; to launch (an attack, an initiative etc); to start; to propose sth (for the first time).

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

发 fā
to issue, to dispatch, to send out; hair
radical 29 ⼜ · 5 strokes
起 qǐ
to begin, to initiate; to rise, to stand up
radical 156 ⾛ · 10 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “originate”

WordPinyinMeaning
首创 (首創)shǒu chuàngto originate; to pioneer; to invent
缘起 (緣起)yuán qǐto originate; origin; genesis
发端 (發端)fā duānto originate; to initiate; beginning; origin
源起yuán qǐto originate
起源qǐ yuánorigin; to originate

Related words

Other words that share a character with 发起.

WordPinyinMeaning
发展 (發展)fā zhǎndevelopment; growth
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")
发现 (發現)fā xiànto notice; to become aware of; to discover; to find; to detect
开发 (開發)kāi fāto exploit (a resource); to open up (for development); to develop
发布 (發佈)fā bùvariant of 发布 (fā bù)
起来 (起來)qǐ laito stand up; to get up; also pr. [qi3lai2]
一起yī qǐ(in) the same place; together; in company (with)
引起yǐn qǐto give rise to; to lead to; to cause; to arouse

See also: Japanese symbol for “originate”.

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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