Chinese symbol for “toughen”
锻炼
duàn liàn
Traditional: 鍛鍊
to toughen; to temper; to engage in physical exercise; to work out
The closest CC-CEDICT match for toughen is 锻炼 (duàn liàn), defined as: to toughen; to temper; to engage in physical exercise; to work out; (fig.) to develop one's skills; to train oneself.
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
Traditional forms
Other Chinese words for “toughen”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 淬炼 (淬煉) | cuì liàn | (fig.) to temper; to forge; to toughen (through hardship or repeated trials) |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 锻炼.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 锻造 (鍛造) | duàn zào | to forge (metal); forging |
| 锻铁 (鍛鐵) | duàn tiě | wrought iron |
| 体育锻炼 (體育鍛煉) | tǐ yù duàn liàn | physical exercise |
| 锻打 (鍛打) | duàn dǎ | to forge (metal) |
| 修炼 (修煉) | xiū liàn | (of Taoists) to practice austerities; to practice asceticism |
| 提炼 (提煉) | tí liàn | to extract (ore, minerals etc); to refine |
| 冶炼 (冶煉) | yě liàn | to smelt metal |
| 炼狱 (煉獄) | liàn yù | purgatory |
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.