King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “soot”

油烟
yóu yān
Traditional: 油煙
soot; lampblack

The closest CC-CEDICT match for soot is 油烟 (yóu yān), defined as: soot; lampblack.

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

油 yóu
oil, fat, grease, lard; oil paints
radical 85 ⽔ · 8 strokes
烟 yān
smoke, soot; opium; tobacco, cigarettes
radical 86 ⽕ · 10 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “soot”

WordPinyinMeaning
煤灰méi huīsoot
炱táisoot
碳黑tàn hēisoot; carbon black

Related words

Other words that share a character with 油烟.

WordPinyinMeaning
石油shí yóuoil; petroleum
加油jiā yóuto add oil; to top up with gas; to refuel; to accelerate; to step on the gas
汽油qì yóugasoline
原油yuán yóucrude oil
柴油机 (柴油機)chái yóu jīdiesel engine
油价 (油價)yóu jiàoil (petroleum) price
烟草 (煙草)yān cǎotobacco
香烟 (香煙)xiāng yānsmoke from incense (burned as an offering to one's ancestors); (fig.) continuation of family line; cigarette (CL:支 (zhī),条 (tiáo),根 (gēn),包

See also: Japanese symbol for “soot”.

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.