Chinese symbol for “spongy”
泡
pāo
puffed; swollen; spongy; small lake (esp. in place names); classifier for urine or feces
The closest CC-CEDICT match for spongy is 泡 (pāo), defined as: puffed; swollen; spongy; small lake (esp. in place names); classifier for urine or feces.
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
Other Chinese words for “spongy”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 海绵状 (海綿狀) | hǎi mián zhuàng | spongy |
| 糠 | kāng | husk; (of a radish etc) spongy (and therefore unappetising) |
| 松软 (鬆軟) | sōng ruǎn | flexible; not rigid |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 泡.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 泡沫 | pào mò | foam; (soap) bubble |
| 泡泡 | pào pao | bubbles |
| 灯泡 (燈泡) | dēng pào | light bulb; see also 电灯泡 (diàn dēng pào) |
| 浸泡 | jìn pào | to steep; to soak |
| 气泡 (氣泡) | qì pào | bubble; blister (in metal) |
| 泡妞 | pào niū | to pick up girls; to play around with girls |
See also: Japanese symbol for “spongy”.
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.