決
Symbols Life
decision
ㄐㄩㄝˊ jué
Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.
Script
Characters
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
Settling a matter and committing. Chinese ties this closely to cutting - deciding is imagined as severing the alternatives.
Before you commit
Choose with care決 rarely stands alone in modern writing. Readers will recognise it, but it looks like the first half of 決心 or 決定 rather than a finished word.
Pairs well with決心 is resolve or determination, and reads as a complete, admirable thing. It is usually a better tattoo than 決 alone.
At small sizesSeven strokes, open and uncrowded. Behaves well small and on curved placements.
Meaning
To decide, resolve, settle; also to burst a dyke.
The core character in deciding, resolving and determination.
Other characters for “decision”
What to do next
Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.
Related concepts