Chinese symbol for “stray”
岔
chà
fork in road; bifurcation; branch in road, river, mountain range etc; to branch off
The closest CC-CEDICT match for stray is 岔 (chà), defined as: fork in road; bifurcation; branch in road, river, mountain range etc; to branch off; to turn off; to diverge.
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 “stray”
Related words
Other words that share a character with 岔.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 岔路 | chà lù | fork in the road |
| 岔开 (岔開) | chà kāi | to diverge; to branch off the road |
| 岔子 | chà zi | branch road; setback |
| 分岔 | fēn chà | (formal) to bifurcate; to branch; (formal) bifurcation; branching |
| 岔道 | chà dào | side road; byway |
| 打岔 | dǎ chà | interruption; to interrupt (esp. talk) |
See also: Japanese symbol for “stray”.
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.