Chinese symbol for “purgatory”
炼狱
liàn yù
Traditional: 煉獄
purgatory
The closest CC-CEDICT match for purgatory is 炼狱 (liàn yù), defined as: purgatory.
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 “purgatory”
Related words
Other words that share a character with 炼狱.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 锻炼 (鍛鍊) | duàn liàn | to toughen; to temper |
| 修炼 (修煉) | xiū liàn | (of Taoists) to practice austerities; to practice asceticism |
| 提炼 (提煉) | tí liàn | to extract (ore, minerals etc); to refine |
| 冶炼 (冶煉) | yě liàn | to smelt metal |
| 炼油 (煉油) | liàn yóu | to refine crude oil; to render animal fat |
| 监狱 (監獄) | jiān yù | prison |
| 地狱 (地獄) | dì yù | hell; underworld; (Buddhism) Naraka; (coll.) (of humor, jokes, content etc) extremely dark or morally transgressive |
| 入狱 (入獄) | rù yù | to go to jail; to be sent to prison |
See also: Japanese symbol for “purgatory”.
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.