fleeting

逝

ㄕˋ shì

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

Layout

Gone almost as soon as it appears. Chinese reaches for characters about slipping past rather than about being short.

Before you commit

Choose with care逝 is the character used when a person dies — 逝世 means to pass away. Worn alone it will read as bereavement rather than as poignancy about time.

Cultural note逝者如斯夫, Confucius at the river saying that what passes is like this, is the line behind this character's link with time.

At small sizesAround eleven strokes, with the walking radical sweeping under the whole character. That long base stroke needs room, especially on a curve.

Meaning

To slip away, to pass; used of time flowing and of people dying.

Time going by while you watch it, the image of the river.

Other characters for “fleeting”

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