Chinese symbol for “plaintive”
凄惨
qī cǎn
Traditional: 悽慘
plaintive; mournful; miserable
The closest CC-CEDICT match for plaintive is 凄惨 (qī cǎn), defined as: plaintive; mournful; miserable.
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
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “plaintive”
Related words
Other words that share a character with 凄惨.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 凄凉 (悽涼) | qī liáng | mournful; miserable |
| 凄苦 (悽苦) | qī kǔ | bleak; miserable |
| 凄美 (淒美) | qī měi | poignant; sad and beautiful |
| 凄厉 (淒厲) | qī lì | mournful (sound) |
| 悲惨 (悲慘) | bēi cǎn | miserable; tragic |
| 惨案 (慘案) | cǎn àn | massacre; tragedy |
| 惨重 (慘重) | cǎn zhòng | disastrous |
| 惨遭 (慘遭) | cǎn zāo | to suffer (defeat, death etc) |
See also: Japanese symbol for “plaintive”.
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.