蜻
Symbols Animals
dragonfly
蜓
ㄑㄧㄥ ㄊㄧㄥˊ qīng tíng
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.
Dragonfly is a fixed two-character word in Chinese; neither half stands alone as the insect.
Before you commit
Choose with careThere is no single character for dragonfly. Splitting 蜻蜓 to get one glyph produces something that reads as an unfinished word, not as a stylish abbreviation.
At small sizesTwo characters, 14 and 12 strokes, both with the insect radical. Together they need real width; a vertical arrangement holds up better than a horizontal one.
Cultural noteThe idiom 蜻蜓點水, a dragonfly touching the water, means doing something superficially, and it is mildly critical. The criticism lands on the manner, not on the insect: the dragonfly itself stays a light summer image in poetry, and the same phrase is used for a brief kiss.
Meaning
Dragonfly. The complete word, both characters required.
The only form a reader takes as the insect without hesitation.
Other characters for “dragonfly”
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