King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “rotten”

腐朽
fǔ xiǔ
rotten; decayed; decadent; degenerate

The closest CC-CEDICT match for rotten is 腐朽 (fǔ xiǔ), defined as: rotten; decayed; decadent; degenerate.

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

腐 fǔ
to spoil, to rot, to decay; rotten
radical 130 ⾁ · 14 strokes
朽 xiǔ
decayed, rotten
radical 75 ⽊ · 6 strokes

Other Chinese words for “rotten”

WordPinyinMeaning
朽xiǔrotten
腐臭fǔ chòurotten (smell); stinking
破pòbroken; damaged
腐败 (腐敗)fǔ bàicorruption; to corrupt
朽坏 (朽壞)xiǔ huàirotten

Related words

Other words that share a character with 腐朽.

WordPinyinMeaning
腐败 (腐敗)fǔ bàicorruption; to corrupt
豆腐dòu futofu; bean curd
贪腐 (貪腐)tān fǔcorruption
腐蚀 (腐蝕)fǔ shícorrosion; to corrode (degrade chemically)
腐烂 (腐爛)fǔ lànto rot; to putrefy
不朽bù xiǔto last forever; eternal; enduring
老朽lǎo xiǔdecrepit and behind the times; old; useless; (humble) I; me (used by the elderly)
朽木xiǔ mùrotten wood

See also: Japanese symbol for “rotten”.

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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