Chinese symbol for “sober”

清醒

qīng xǐng

clear-headed; sober; awake

The closest CC-CEDICT match for sober is 清醒 (qīng xǐng), defined as: clear-headed; sober; awake.

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

清 qīng

clean, pure; clear, distinct; peaceful

radical 85 ⽔ · 11 strokes

醒 xǐng

to wake up, to startle; to sober up

radical 164 ⾣ · 16 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 清醒.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
清楚	qīng chu	clear; distinct
清理	qīng lǐ	to clear up; to tidy up
清晰	qīng xī	clear; distinct
高清	gāo qīng	high definition (television etc); high fidelity (audio)
清洁 (清潔)	qīng jié	clean; to clean
提醒	tí xǐng	to remind; to call attention to
觉醒 (覺醒)	jué xǐng	to awaken; to come to realize
醒来 (醒來)	xǐng lái	to waken

See also: Japanese symbol for “sober”.

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.