King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “surprise”

惊讶
jīng yà
Traditional: 驚訝
amazed; astonished; to surprise; amazing

The closest CC-CEDICT match for surprise is 惊讶 (jīng yà), defined as: amazed; astonished; to surprise; amazing; astonishment; awe.

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

惊 jīng
to frighten, to startle; surprise, alarm
radical 61 ⼼ · 11 strokes
讶 yà
amazed, surprised; to express surprise
radical 149 ⾔ · 6 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “surprise”

WordPinyinMeaning
惊怖 (驚怖)jīng bùto surprise
揜yǎncover up; to surprise

Related words

Other words that share a character with 惊讶.

WordPinyinMeaning
惊人 (驚人)jīng rénastonishing
惊喜 (驚喜)jīng xǐnice surprise; to be pleasantly surprised
震惊 (震驚)zhèn jīngto shock; to astonish
吃惊 (吃驚)chī jīngto be startled; to be shocked
惊奇 (驚奇)jīng qíto be amazed; to be surprised
讶异 (訝異)yà yìto be surprised; to be astonished
怪讶 (怪訝)guài yàastonished

See also: Japanese symbol for “surprise”.

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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