King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “purposely”

刻意
kè yì
intentionally; deliberately; purposely; painstakingly; meticulously

The closest CC-CEDICT match for purposely is 刻意 (kè yì), defined as: intentionally; deliberately; purposely; painstakingly; meticulously.

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

刻 kè
to carve, to engrave; a quarter hour; a moment
radical 18 ⼑ · 8 strokes
意 yì
thought, idea, opinion; desire, wish; meaning, intention
radical 61 ⼼ · 13 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 刻意.

WordPinyinMeaning
时刻 (時刻)shí kètime; juncture
立刻lì kèimmediately; at once; right away
深刻shēn kèprofound; deep
此刻cǐ kèthis moment; now
一刻yī kèa quarter of an hour; 15 minutes; a moment; an instant
注意zhù yìto take note of; to pay attention to
意见 (意見)yì jiànidea; opinion
意思yì siidea; opinion

See also: Japanese symbol for “purposely”.

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.