護
Symbols Protection
protection
ㄏㄨˋ hù
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.
Keeping something from harm. Chinese has separate characters for shielding, for holding a position, and for a god watching over you.
Before you commit
Choose with care護 is a verb and does not sit still as a noun. It is also tied closely to nursing - 護士 nurse, 看護 carer - so it can read as care rather than as defence.
Pairs well with守護 for watching over someone, 保護 for protection in general. Both read cleanly where 護 alone feels unfinished.
At small sizesAround twenty strokes, speech radical left and a crowded right half. It needs size; small versions turn the right side into a block.
Meaning
To protect, to guard, to shield.
The active verb - stepping between something and what threatens it.
Other characters for “protection”
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