King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “sluice”

闸
zhá
Traditional: 閘
sluice; sluice gate; to dam up water; (coll.) brake; (coll.) electric switch

The closest CC-CEDICT match for sluice is 闸 (zhá), defined as: sluice; sluice gate; to dam up water; (coll.) brake; (coll.) electric switch.

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

闸 zhá
sluice, floodgate, canal lock
radical 169 ⾨ · 8 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “sluice”

WordPinyinMeaning
水闸 (水閘)shuǐ zhásluice; water gate
溜槽liū cáosluice; chute
灉yōngname of a river; sluice

Related words

Other words that share a character with 闸.

WordPinyinMeaning
闸门 (閘門)zhá ménsluice gate
大闸蟹 (大閘蟹)dà zhá xièChinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis); Shanghai hairy crab
水闸 (水閘)shuǐ zhásluice; water gate
船闸 (船閘)chuán zhánavigation lock
闸口 (閘口)zhá kǒuopen sluice gate; (toll) station
晶闸管 (晶閘管)jīng zhá guǎn(electronics) silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR); thyristor

See also: Japanese symbol for “sluice”.

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.