King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “unfamiliar”

生疏
shēng shū
unfamiliar; strange; out of practice; not accustomed

The closest CC-CEDICT match for unfamiliar is 生疏 (shēng shū), defined as: unfamiliar; strange; out of practice; not accustomed.

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

生 shēng
life, lifetime; birth; growth
radical 100 ⽣ · 5 strokes
疏 shū
to neglect; to dredge, to clear away; lax, careless
radical 103 ⽦ · 12 strokes

Other Chinese words for “unfamiliar”

WordPinyinMeaning
陌生mò shēngstrange; unfamiliar
生shēngto grow; to give birth; to produce; to be born; to arise; to occur
生僻shēng pìunfamiliar; rarely seen
眼生yǎn shēngunfamiliar; strange-looking
冷僻lěng pìout-of-the-way; deserted

Related words

Other words that share a character with 生疏.

WordPinyinMeaning
发生 (發生)fā shēngto happen; to occur; to take place; to arise (e.g. 发生问题 (fā shēng wèn tí) "a problem arises")
生活shēng huóto live; life
学生 (學生)xué shengstudent; schoolchild
生产 (生產)shēng chǎnto produce; to manufacture; to give birth to a child
产生 (產生)chǎn shēngto arise; to come into being; to come about; to give rise to; to bring into being; to bring about; to produce; to engender; to generate
先生xiān shengteacher; gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.)
疏散shū sǎnidle; leisurely; laid-back; Taiwan pr. [shu1san4]
疏忽shū huto neglect; to overlook

See also: Japanese symbol for “unfamiliar”.

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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