Chinese character for bird: 鸟 (niǎo)
The Chinese character for bird is 鸟 (niǎo). It means bird and appears in 小鸟 (xiǎoniǎo, little bird) and 鸟巢 (niǎocháo, bird's nest). Birds stand for freedom and good news in Chinese art.
How 鸟 is built
The traditional form 鳥 is a pictograph of a bird standing on its side: you can see the head and eye at the top, the body and wing in the middle, and the four dots below as tail feathers and feet. The simplified 鸟 is a cursive shortening of it. As a part of other characters it marks birds, as in 鸡 (chicken) and 鸭 (duck). Don't confuse it with 乌 (wū, crow), which lacks the eye dot.
鸟 niǎo · bird
鸟 is not built from smaller parts; it is written with 5 strokes.
Origin hint: Simplified form of 烏, a bird (from the Make Me a Hanzi dataset; treat as a memory aid where history is uncertain)
How 鸟 is used
Before you use it as a tattoo or design: Keep the small 'eye' dot inside 鸟; without it the character becomes 乌 (crow).
Questions
What is the Chinese character for bird?
鸟 (niǎo) means “bird”. In traditional characters it is written 鳥.
How do you pronounce 鸟?
鸟 is pronounced niǎo.
Is 鸟 simplified or traditional?
鸟 is the simplified form used in mainland China and Singapore; 鳥 is the traditional form used in Taiwan and Hong Kong.