Chinese symbol for “sieve”
筛
shāi
Traditional: 篩
(bound form) a sieve; to sieve; to sift; to filter; to eliminate through selection; to warm a pot of rice wine (over a fire or in hot water)
The closest CC-CEDICT match for sieve is 筛 (shāi), defined as: (bound form) a sieve; to sieve; to sift; to filter; to eliminate through selection; to warm a pot of rice wine (over a fire or in hot water); to pour (wine or tea); (dialect) to strike (a gong).
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
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “sieve”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 筛子 (篩子) | shāi zi | sieve; measure word: 面 (miàn) |
| 滤网 (濾網) | lǜ wǎng | filter; a sieve |
| 沙 | shà | (dialect) to sift; to sieve |
| 簁 | xǐ | sieve; to sift, to strain |
| 漏锅 (漏鍋) | lòu guō | colander; strainer |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 筛.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 筛选 (篩選) | shāi xuǎn | to filter |
| 筛查 (篩查) | shāi chá | to screen (for disease etc) |
| 筛检 (篩檢) | shāi jiǎn | to screen (for disease etc) |
| 筛子 (篩子) | shāi zi | sieve; measure word: 面 (miàn) |
| 分子筛 (分子篩) | fēn zǐ shāi | molecular sieve |
| 过筛 (過篩) | guò shāi | to put through a sieve; to sift (flour etc); to strain (a liquid); (fig.) to screen; to filter; to select |
See also: Japanese symbol for “sieve”.
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.