King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “sadness”

哀愁
āi chóu
sorrow; sadness; distressed; sorrowful

The closest CC-CEDICT match for sadness is 哀愁 (āi chóu), defined as: sorrow; sadness; distressed; sorrowful.

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

哀 āi
sad, mournful, pitiful; to pity; to grieve
radical 30 ⼝ · 9 strokes
愁 chóu
anxious, worried
radical 61 ⼼ · 13 strokes

Other Chinese words for “sadness”

WordPinyinMeaning
悲bēisad; sadness

Related words

Other words that share a character with 哀愁.

WordPinyinMeaning
悲哀bēi āigrieved; sorrowful
哀悼āi dàoto grieve over sb's death; to lament sb's death
哀伤 (哀傷)āi shānggrief; distress; bereavement; grieved; heartbroken; dejected
哀求āi qiúto entreat; to implore
默哀mò āito observe a moment of silence in tribute
致哀zhì āito express grief; to mourn
忧愁 (憂愁)yōu chóuto be worried
发愁 (發愁)fā chóuto worry; to fret

See also: Japanese symbol for “sadness”.

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.