King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “smelly”

发臭
fā chòu
Traditional: 發臭
smelly; to smell bad

The closest CC-CEDICT match for smelly is 发臭 (fā chòu), defined as: smelly; to smell bad.

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

发 fā
to issue, to dispatch, to send out; hair
radical 29 ⼜ · 5 strokes
臭 chòu
to reek, to smell, to stink
radical 132 ⾃ · 10 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “smelly”

WordPinyinMeaning
臭chòustench; smelly
恶臭 (惡臭)è chòustink; stench; stinky; smelly

Related words

Other words that share a character with 发臭.

WordPinyinMeaning
发展 (發展)fā zhǎndevelopment; growth
发生 (發生)fā shēngto happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises")
发现 (發現)fā xiànto notice; to become aware of; to discover; to find; to detect
开发 (開發)kāi fāto exploit (a resource); to open up (for development); to develop
发布 (發佈)fā bùvariant of 发布 (fā bù)
恶臭 (惡臭)è chòustink; stench; stinky; smelly
臭味chòu wèibad smell; foul odor
臭氧chòu yǎngozone (O₃)

See also: Japanese symbol for “smelly”.

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.