King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “pitiful”

可怜
kě lián
Traditional: 可憐
pitiful; pathetic; to have pity on

The closest CC-CEDICT match for pitiful is 可怜 (kě lián), defined as: pitiful; pathetic; to have pity on.

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

可 kě
may, can, -able; possibly
radical 30 ⼝ · 5 strokes
怜 lián
to pity, to sympathize with
radical 61 ⼼ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “pitiful”

WordPinyinMeaning
凄怆 (悽愴)qī chuàngpitiful; painful; heartrending
可怜巴巴 (可憐巴巴)kě lián bā bāpathetic; pitiful

Related words

Other words that share a character with 可怜.

WordPinyinMeaning
可以kě yǐcan; may
可能kě néngmight (happen); possible
可是kě shìbut; however; (used for emphasis) indeed
不可bù kěcannot; should not; must not
可怕kě pàawful; dreadful
可爱 (可愛)kě àiadorable; cute
怜悯 (憐憫)lián mǐnto take pity on; pity
可怜虫 (可憐蟲)kě lián chóngpitiful creature; wretch

See also: Japanese symbol for “pitiful”.

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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