King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “stingy”

吝啬
lìn sè
Traditional: 吝嗇
stingy; mean; miserly

The closest CC-CEDICT match for stingy is 吝啬 (lìn sè), defined as: stingy; mean; miserly.

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

吝 lìn
stingy, miserly; parsimonious
radical 30 ⼝ · 7 strokes
啬 sè
miserly, stingy, thrifty
radical 30 ⼝ · 11 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “stingy”

WordPinyinMeaning
小气 (小氣)xiǎo qìstingy; miserly
抠门 (摳門)kōu mén(coll.) stingy
啬 (嗇)sèstingy
悭 (慳)qiānstingy
吝lìn(bound form) stingy

Related words

Other words that share a character with 吝啬.

WordPinyinMeaning
不吝bù lìnnot to stint; to be generous (with praise etc); to be prepared to (pay a fee, give of one's time etc)
吝惜lìn xīto stint; to be miserly
吝啬鬼 (吝嗇鬼)lìn sè guǐmiser; penny-pincher
悭吝 (慳吝)qiān lìn(literary) miserly; stingy
不吝赐教 (不吝賜教)bù lìn cì jiàoto be so kind as to enlighten me

See also: Japanese symbol for “stingy”.

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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