逝
Symbols Memory
the departed
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
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
Those who have died, named gently. Chinese has a soft word and a blunt one, and the difference matters.
Before you commit
Choose with care逝 is a verb of passing, not a noun for the dead. Alone it reads as something slipping away - time, water, a life - rather than as a person.
Pairs well with逝者 for the departed as people, 逝世 for the act of passing away. Both are respectful and immediately understood.
At small sizesEleven strokes with a long sweeping walk radical at the base. That sweep suits curved placements like a forearm.
Meaning
To pass away; to flow on and be gone.
The gentle word - used of time passing as well as of people dying.
Other characters for “the departed”
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