King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “shell”

壳
ké
Traditional: 殼
(coll.) shell (of an egg, nut, crab etc); case; casing; housing (of a machine or device)

The closest CC-CEDICT match for shell is 壳 (ké), defined as: (coll.) shell (of an egg, nut, crab etc); case; casing; housing (of a machine or device).

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

壳 ké
casing, husk, shell
radical 33 ⼠ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “shell”

WordPinyinMeaning
炮击 (炮擊)pào jīto shell; to bombard
炮击 (砲擊)pào jīto shell; to bombard
贝壳 (貝殼)bèi késhell (of a mollusk)
弹 (彈)dàncrossball; bullet
介jièto introduce; to lie between

Related words

Other words that share a character with 壳.

WordPinyinMeaning
外壳 (外殼)wài kéenvelope; outer shell
贝壳 (貝殼)bèi késhell (of a mollusk)
地壳 (地殼)dì qiàothe Earth's crust
弹壳 (彈殼)dàn kéammunition case
脑壳 (腦殼)nǎo ké(coll.) head; skull; (fig.) brains (mental capacity)
蛋壳 (蛋殼)dàn kéeggshell

See also: Japanese symbol for “shell”.

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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