Chinese symbol for “painful”
痛苦
tòng kǔ
pain; suffering; painful; 个 (gè)
The closest CC-CEDICT match for painful is 痛苦 (tòng kǔ), defined as: pain; suffering; painful; 个 (gè).
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
Other Chinese words for “painful”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 惨痛 (慘痛) | cǎn tòng | bitter; painful |
| 苦苦 | kǔ kǔ | strenuously; persistently |
| 火辣辣 | huǒ là là | scorching hot; (of a burn or other injury) painful; burning |
| 凄怆 (悽愴) | qī chuàng | pitiful; painful; heartrending |
| 酸涩 (酸澀) | suān sè | sour; acrid |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 痛苦.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 疼痛 | téng tòng | pain; (of a body part) to be painful; to be sore; to hurt |
| 头痛 (頭痛) | tóu tòng | to have a headache |
| 心痛 | xīn tòng | to feel distressed about sth; heartache |
| 悲痛 | bēi tòng | grieved; sorrowful |
| 痛快 | tòng kuài | delighted; to one's heart's content |
| 辛苦 | xīn kǔ | exhausting; hard |
| 苦难 (苦難) | kǔ nàn | suffering |
| 艰苦 (艱苦) | jiān kǔ | difficult; hard |
See also: Japanese symbol for “painful”.
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.