King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “trouble”

麻烦
má fan
Traditional: 麻煩
trouble; inconvenience; inconvenient; troublesome; annoying; to bother sb; to put sb to trouble

The closest CC-CEDICT match for trouble is 麻烦 (má fan), defined as: trouble; inconvenience; inconvenient; troublesome; annoying; to bother sb; to put sb to trouble.

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

麻 má
hemp, flax, sesame; numb
radical 200 ⿇ · 11 strokes
烦 fan
to bother, to trouble, to vex
radical 86 ⽕ · 10 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “trouble”

WordPinyinMeaning
难处 (難處)nán chutrouble; difficulty; problem
娄子 (婁子)lóu zitrouble; blunder
烦 (煩)fánto feel vexed; to bother
失风 (失風)shī fēngtrouble; damage
患huànto suffer (from illness); to contract (a disease)

Related words

Other words that share a character with 麻烦.

WordPinyinMeaning
大麻dà máhemp (Cannabis sativa); cannabis
麻将 (麻將)má jiàngmahjong; measure word: 局 (jú), 副 (fù)
麻醉má zuìanesthesia; to anesthetize; (fig.) to corrupt (sb's mind); to enervate; to numb the mind (to escape from harsh reality)
麻木má mùnumb; insensitive
麻雀má quèsparrow; (dialect) mahjong
烦恼 (煩惱)fán nǎoto be worried; to be distressed
厌烦 (厭煩)yàn fánbored; fed up with sth; sick of sth
烦躁 (煩躁)fán zàojittery; twitchy

See also: Japanese symbol for “trouble”.

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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