King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “revelation”

启发
qǐ fā
Traditional: 啟發
to enlighten; to explain (a text etc); to stimulate (a mental attitude); enlightenment

The closest CC-CEDICT match for revelation is 启发 (qǐ fā), defined as: to enlighten; to explain (a text etc); to stimulate (a mental attitude); enlightenment; revelation; motivation.

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

启 qǐ
to open; to begin, to commence; to explain
radical 30 ⼝ · 7 strokes
发 fā
to issue, to dispatch, to send out; hair
radical 29 ⼜ · 5 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “revelation”

WordPinyinMeaning
揭发 (揭發)jiē fāto expose; to bring to light
启示 (啟示)qǐ shìto reveal; to enlighten
爆料bào liàoto reveal inside or previously undisclosed information; revelation; leak; tip-off

Related words

Other words that share a character with 启发.

WordPinyinMeaning
启动 (啟動)qǐ dòngto start (a machine); (fig.) to set in motion
开启 (開啟)kāi qǐto start; to begin; to initiate (an era, process, journey etc); (computing) to enable (a feature)
启用 (啟用)qǐ yòngto start using; (computing) to enable (a feature)
启蒙 (啟矇)qǐ méngvariant of 启蒙 (qǐ méng); to instruct the young
发展 (發展)fā zhǎndevelopment; growth
发生 (發生)fā shēngto happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises")
发现 (發現)fā xiànto notice; to become aware of; to discover; to find; to detect
开发 (開發)kāi fāto exploit (a resource); to open up (for development); to develop

See also: Japanese symbol for “revelation”.

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.