King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “trilogy”

三部曲
sān bù qǔ
trilogy; (fig.) three-stage process; three-part progression

The closest CC-CEDICT match for trilogy is 三部曲 (sān bù qǔ), defined as: trilogy; (fig.) three-stage process; three-part progression.

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

三 sān
three
radical 1 ⼀ · 3 strokes
部 bù
department, ministry; division, unit; part, section
radical 163 ⾢ · 10 strokes
曲 qǔ
crooked, bent; wrong, false
radical 73 ⽈ · 6 strokes

Related words

Other words that share a character with 三部曲.

WordPinyinMeaning
三星sān xīngthree major stars of the Three Stars 参宿 (Shēn xiù) Chinese constellation; the belt of Orion
三次sān cìthird; three times
三级 (三級)sān jígrade 3; third class
十三shí sānthirteen; 13
三分sān fēnsomewhat; to some degree
第三方dì sān fāngthird party
部分bù fenpart; portion; piece; Taiwan pr. [bu4fen4]
部门 (部門)bù méndepartment; branch
歌曲gē qǔsong

See also: Japanese symbol for “trilogy”.

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.