潛
Symbols Life
potential
力
ㄑㄧㄢˊ ㄌㄧˋ qián lì
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.
Ability that is there but has not shown itself yet. Chinese says this with the character for submerged, still under the surface.
Before you commit
Choose with care潛 alone means to dive or to hide. A reader sees submerged, not promising — the 力 is what turns it into potential.
Cultural note潛力 is what teachers write about students who are not yet performing, so it can carry a faint sense of promise unfulfilled.
At small sizesSeventeen strokes over two characters. The water radical keeps 潛 tall and narrow, so stack the pair rather than crowding it.
Meaning
Potential; latent power not yet drawn on.
The everyday word, said of people, teams and markets alike.
Other characters for “potential”
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