King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “powerless”

无能
wú néng
Traditional: 無能
incompetence; inability; incapable; powerless

The closest CC-CEDICT match for powerless is 无能 (wú néng), defined as: incompetence; inability; incapable; powerless.

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

无 wú
no, not; lacking, -less
radical 71 ⽆ · 4 strokes
能 néng
can, may; capable, full of energy
radical 130 ⾁ · 10 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “powerless”

WordPinyinMeaning
苍白无力 (蒼白無力)cāng bái wú lìpale and feeble; powerless
无牙 (無牙)wú yátoothless; (fig.) powerless

Related words

Other words that share a character with 无能.

WordPinyinMeaning
无法 (無法)wú fǎunable to; incapable of
无论 (無論)wú lùnno matter what or how; regardless of whether...
毫无 (毫無)háo wúnot in the least; to completely lack
无限 (無限)wú xiànunlimited; unbounded; infinite
无关 (無關)wú guānunrelated; having nothing to do (with sth else)
无数 (無數)wú shùcountless; numberless
可能kě néngmight (happen); possible
不能bù néngcannot; must not

See also: Japanese symbol for “powerless”.

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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