King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “preoccupied”

心不在焉
xīn bù zài yān
absent-minded; preoccupied; inattentive; with one's thoughts wandering

The closest CC-CEDICT match for preoccupied is 心不在焉 (xīn bù zài yān), defined as: absent-minded; preoccupied; inattentive; with one's thoughts wandering.

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

心 xīn
heart; mind; soul
radical 61 ⼼ · 4 strokes
不 bù
no, not, un-; negative prefix
radical 1 ⼀ · 4 strokes
在 zài
at, in, on; to exist; used to indicate the present progressive tense
radical 32 ⼟ · 6 strokes
焉 yān
why? where? how?; strange; thereupon, then
radical 86 ⽕ · 11 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 心不在焉.

WordPinyinMeaning
中心zhōng xīncenter; heart; core
担心 (擔心)dān xīnanxious; worried
关心 (關心)guān xīnto be concerned about; to care about
核心hé xīncore; nucleus
开心 (開心)kāi xīnto feel happy; to rejoice
心里 (心裡)xīn lichest; heart; mind
不是bù shìno; is not
不能bù néngcannot; must not
现在 (現在)xiàn zàinow; at present; currently
语焉不详 (語焉不詳)yǔ yān bù xiángto mention sth without elaborating (idiom); not giving details

See also: Japanese symbol for “preoccupied”.

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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