The Chinese symbol for health — 康 (kāng)

Where the character comes from

The oldest forms of 康 appear to show a winnowing implement with grain falling from it. The health sense is a loan onto a character that started somewhere else entirely — a common enough story in the script, and worth remembering whenever a neat pictographic gloss is offered.

How it is actually used

健康 is health and healthy, 康复 is to recover from illness, 安康 is a formal wish for peace and health, and 小康 — 'moderately well-off' — is a specific and much-used term in modern Chinese economic policy.

Both glyphs above are set in whatever Chinese font your device uses, which is a 楷书-derived regular script — the same shape a printer or a tattoo studio's "Chinese font" will produce. Brush styles (行书 running, 草书 cursive, 篆书 seal) look substantially different and are worth commissioning from a calligrapher rather than approximating from a font. You can watch this character written stroke by stroke in the Stroke Order Animator or practise it on printable 田字格 sheets.

This is the part a symbol list leaves out, and it is the fastest way to feel what a character actually carries. Readings and meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the translator; tap any word for its full dictionary entry.

康 is one answer, not the answer. Which of these is right depends on what you mean by "health" — and that is usually the question worth settling before anything is written down permanently.

What is the Chinese symbol for health?

康 (kāng) means well and in good health, but you would not use it alone: the word for health is 健康 (jiànkāng). A single 康 reads to a great many Chinese people as a surname. It is written 康 and pronounced kāng.

What does 康 not mean?

It does not mean fitness or strength. 健 is the robust, fit half of 健康; 康 contributes wellness and ease.

Is 康 commonly mistranslated?

Yes. The claim you will meet most often is: "康 means health." 健康 means health. On its own 康 is a bound morpheme, and one of the commonest Chinese surnames besides. This page lists 2 such claims about 康 with what is true instead.

Is 康 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?

康 is the same in simplified and traditional Chinese, eleven strokes. The 广 shelter component on the outside gives it an open, left-leaning shape that calligraphers use to balance a denser character beside it.

What else can I use for health in Chinese?

Depending on what you mean: 健康, 健, 安. This page explains when each one is the right choice, and 康 itself lives in words such as 健康, 康复, 小康.