King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “zigzag”

蜿蜒
wān yán
(of a snake) to wriggle along; (of a river etc) to zigzag; to meander; to wind

The closest CC-CEDICT match for zigzag is 蜿蜒 (wān yán), defined as: (of a snake) to wriggle along; (of a river etc) to zigzag; to meander; to wind.

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

蜿 wān
to creep, to crawl
radical 142 ⾍ · 14 strokes
蜒 yán
millipede
radical 142 ⾍ · 12 strokes

Other Chinese words for “zigzag”

WordPinyinMeaning
之字形zhī zì xíngZ-shaped; zigzag
蛇行shé xíngto creep; to zigzag
锯齿形 (鋸齒形)jù chǐ xíngsawtooth shape; zigzag

Related words

Other words that share a character with 蜿蜒.

WordPinyinMeaning
蚰蜒yóu yánhouse centipede
蚰蜒路yóu yan lùlit. centipede's path; fig. narrow winding road
蜒蚰yán yóu(dialect) a slug
蜗蜒 (蝸蜒)wō yánsnail

See also: Japanese symbol for “zigzag”.

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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