King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “spartan”

清苦
qīng kǔ
destitute but honest; poor and simple; spartan; austere

The closest CC-CEDICT match for spartan is 清苦 (qīng kǔ), defined as: destitute but honest; poor and simple; spartan; austere.

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
苦 kǔ
bitter; hardship, suffering
radical 140 ⾋ · 9 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 清苦.

WordPinyinMeaning
清楚qīng chuclear; distinct
清理qīng lǐto clear up; to tidy up
清晰qīng xīclear; distinct
高清gāo qīnghigh definition (television etc); high fidelity (audio)
清洁 (清潔)qīng jiéclean; to clean
清醒qīng xǐngclear-headed; sober
痛苦tòng kǔpain; suffering
辛苦xīn kǔexhausting; hard

See also: Japanese symbol for “spartan”.

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.

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