King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “prose”

散文
sǎn wén
(broadly) prose (as opposed to verse); (more narrowly) free-form literary prose, such as essays, sketches and reflections

The closest CC-CEDICT match for prose is 散文 (sǎn wén), defined as: (broadly) prose (as opposed to verse); (more narrowly) free-form literary prose, such as essays, sketches and reflections.

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

散 sǎn
to scatter, to disperse, to break up
radical 66 ⽁ · 12 strokes
文 wén
culture, literature, writing
radical 67 ⽂ · 4 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 散文.

WordPinyinMeaning
扩散 (擴散)kuò sànto spread; to proliferate; to diffuse
分散fēn sànto scatter; to disperse
解散jiě sànto dissolve; to disband
散发 (散發)sàn fāto distribute; to emit; to give off
散布 (散佈)sàn bùto disseminate
文化wén huàculture; civilization
文章wén zhāngarticle; essay
文件wén jiàndocument; file

See also: Japanese symbol for “prose”.

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.