涂鸦

塗鴉

túyā

noun/verb #9,141

Meanings

1 graffiti
2 to scribble; to doodle
3 (self-deprecating) poor handwriting or painting

Characters

to smear; to scribble

Smear + crow — from a story of a child scribbling over his father's calligraphy, making it look like crow tracks.

Examples

墙上有很多涂鸦。

Qiáng shàng yǒu hěn duō túyā.

There's a lot of graffiti on the wall.

小孩子喜欢在纸上涂鸦。

Xiǎo háizi xǐhuan zài zhǐ shàng túyā.

Little kids like to scribble on paper.

这是我的涂鸦之作，请别见笑。

Zhè shì wǒ de túyā zhī zuò, qǐng bié jiànxiào.

This is just my humble scribble — please don't laugh.

Tips

history

The term comes from a Tang dynasty story: the calligrapher Lu Xiang's young son scrawled all over his manuscripts. Lu sighed that the boy's scribbles looked like 涂鸦 (crow smears).

usage

In modern Chinese, 涂鸦 covers both street graffiti art and childish doodling. It can also be used as a humble way to describe one's own artwork: 信笔涂鸦 (casual scribbling).

Stroke Order

涂 tú

鸦 yā