戒
Symbols Virtues
sobriety
ㄐㄧㄝˋ jiè
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.
Clear-headedness kept on purpose, whether that means giving something up or simply not being carried away.
Before you commit
Choose with careEnglish sobriety splits into three unrelated Chinese ideas: not drinking, being clear-headed, and being serious in manner. Decide which you mean before choosing, because no character covers all three.
At small sizesSeven strokes, angular and open. It holds up well small and on curved placements, which is rare in this batch.
Cultural note戒 is also the word for the Buddhist precepts a monk or lay practitioner takes on. That association is dignified and widely understood, and fits a recovery meaning well.
Meaning
To give up, to abstain from; also a moral precept.
The character used for quitting drink, smoking or any dependency.
Other characters for “sobriety”
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