King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “reconnaissance”

侦察
zhēn chá
Traditional: 偵察
to investigate a crime; to scout; to reconnoiter; reconnaissance

The closest CC-CEDICT match for reconnaissance is 侦察 (zhēn chá), defined as: to investigate a crime; to scout; to reconnoiter; reconnaissance; detection; a scout.

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

侦 zhēn
to spy, to reconnoiter; detective
radical 9 ⼈ · 8 strokes
察 chá
to examine, to investigate, to observe
radical 40 ⼧ · 14 strokes

Traditional forms

Related words

Other words that share a character with 侦察.

WordPinyinMeaning
侦探 (偵探)zhēn tàndetective; to do detective work
侦查 (偵查)zhēn cháto detect; to investigate
侦测 (偵測)zhēn cèto detect; to sense
侦察机 (偵察機)zhēn chá jīsurveillance aircraft; spy plane
侦破 (偵破)zhēn pòto investigate (as detective); to solve (crime)
警察jǐng chápolice; police officer
观察 (觀察)guān cháto observe; to watch; to survey
考察kǎo cháto inspect; to observe and study

See also: Japanese symbol for “reconnaissance”.

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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