King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “trowel”

铲子
chǎn zi
Traditional: 鏟子
shovel; spade; trowel; spatula (kitchen utensil); measure word: 把 (bǎ)

The closest CC-CEDICT match for trowel is 铲子 (chǎn zi), defined as: shovel; spade; trowel; spatula (kitchen utensil); measure word: 把 (bǎ).

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

铲 chǎn
spade, shovel; trowel, scoop
radical 167 ⾦ · 11 strokes
子 zi
son, child; seed, egg; fruit; small thing
radical 39 ⼦ · 3 strokes

Traditional forms

Other Chinese words for “trowel”

WordPinyinMeaning
小铲子 (小鏟子)xiǎo chǎn zitrowel
泥刀ní dāotrowel
泥铲 (泥鏟)ní chǎntrowel
镘 (鏝)mànside of coin without words; trowel
抹刀mǒ dāoscraper; trowel

Related words

Other words that share a character with 铲子.

WordPinyinMeaning
铲除 (剷除)chǎn chúto root out; to eradicate; to sweep away; to abolish
铲平 (剷平)chǎn píngto level the ground (with a hoe, shovel etc); to raze (a building, forest etc)
铲车 (鏟車)chǎn chēfront loader (vehicle); 台 (tái)
铲球 (鏟球)chǎn qiú(soccer) to do a sliding tackle
锅铲 (鍋鏟)guō chǎnwok spatula; cooking spatula
孩子hái zichild
儿子 (兒子)ér zison
电子 (電子)diàn zǐelectronic; electron (particle physics)

See also: Japanese symbol for “trowel”.

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.