Before you get that tattooed

Paste the characters. This looks them up in the same dictionaries translators use and tells you what they actually say — including when a word is vulgar, archaic, or not a word at all. It does not invent Japanese, and it does not tell you anything a dictionary has not already recorded.

What this cannot tell you

  • Whether it looks right. Stylised and brush fonts distort strokes; a character can be correct in the dictionary and unreadable on skin.
  • How it lands on a person. Dictionaries record register, not the impression a stranger forms — that needs a native speaker, ideally one who knows why you want it.
  • Whether your artist will draw it correctly. Take the characters, not a picture of them, and check the stencil against this page before the needle.
  • Anything about names. Writing a personal name in kanji is a separate problem with no single right answer.