King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “scary”

可怕
kě pà
awful; dreadful; fearful; formidable

The closest CC-CEDICT match for scary is 可怕 (kě pà), defined as: awful; dreadful; fearful; formidable; frightful; scary.

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

可 kě
may, can, -able; possibly
radical 30 ⼝ · 5 strokes
怕 pà
to fear, to be afraid of; apprehensive
radical 61 ⼼ · 8 strokes

Other Chinese words for “scary”

WordPinyinMeaning
吓人 (嚇人)xià rénto scare; scary
瘆人 (瘮人)shèn rénscary

Related words

Other words that share a character with 可怕.

WordPinyinMeaning
可以kě yǐcan; may
可能kě néngmight (happen); possible
可是kě shìbut; however; (used for emphasis) indeed
不可bù kěcannot; should not; must not
可爱 (可愛)kě àiadorable; cute
害怕hài pàto be afraid; to be scared
恐怕kǒng pàfear; to dread
不怕bù pàfearless; not worried (by setbacks or difficulties)

See also: Japanese symbol for “scary”.

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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