King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “sanctions”

制裁
zhì cái
to punish; punishment; sanctions (incl. economic)

The closest CC-CEDICT match for sanctions is 制裁 (zhì cái), defined as: to punish; punishment; sanctions (incl. economic).

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

制 zhì
system; to establish; to manufacture; to overpower
radical 18 ⼑ · 8 strokes
裁 cái
to trim, to reduce, to cut; judgment
radical 145 ⾐ · 12 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 制裁.

WordPinyinMeaning
控制kòng zhìto control
制度zhì dùsystem (e.g. political, adminstrative etc); institution
限制xiàn zhìto restrict; to limit
制作 (製作)zhì zuòto make; to manufacture
制造 (製造)zhì zàoto manufacture; to make
体制 (體制)tǐ zhìsystem; organization
总裁 (總裁)zǒng cáichairman; director-general (of a company etc)
独裁 (獨裁)dú cáidictatorship

See also: Japanese symbol for “sanctions”.

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.