The Calligrapher — Zhì Yǒng 智永

Sui monk who spread Wang Xizhi's art via his 'Thousand Characters'.

Sui calligrapher (生卒年不详（陈/隋）), master of regular script/cursive script — monk and seventh-generation descendant of Wang Xizhi who wrote a thousand copies of the Thousand Character Classic to pass the family hand down. Sui dynasty

Etymology & Meaning · 字义溯源

2 · The Character: 获 Huò (4th tone). 獲 (simplified 获; also 穫 for grain) is to catch, to seize, to attain. 《說文解字》: 『獲，獵所獲也。从犬，蒦聲』 (『what the hunt takes; from 犬, 蒦 sound』). The Book of Changes praises the catch: 《易·解》 九二 『田獲三狐，得黃矢，貞吉』 (『in the field, catch three foxes, gain the yellow arrow — fortune』). 《詩經·小雅·巧言》 has 『遇犬獲之』 (『the hound meets it and takes it』). By extension 獲 is 『to gain, to harvest』 — 收獲 (reap), 獲勝 (win). Honest disclosure: the simplified 获 merges two words — 獲 (catch game) and 穫 (harvest grain) — and a Chinese-literate reader may notice which you mean; 獲 also means 『to capture a person』 (俘獲). As a tattoo it reads 『attainment, the prize won』, a positive standalone, best paired with 勝/收 for clarity.

Cultural Story

获's ancient form caught a bird in a hand: the hunt's yield, the hunter's success. From capturing game the word widened to capturing cities, criminals, and then everything — knowledge, prizes, permission. Autumn gave it its warmest compound: 收获, the harvest, which became Chinese for any season's returns, effort made visible. Its formal register carries the reverses too: 获罪, to incur guilt, the old hunt closing in.

Common words & phrases

• 获得 obtain · gain
• 收获 harvest · gain
• 获准 get approval
• 获救 be rescued
• 获罪 offend · be guilty
• 荣获 win · be awarded

Read the story behind the character

Her visa is finally 获准, the stamp landing like a grade. Back home, grandma's balcony 收获 amounts to nine chili peppers and one pumpkin, photographed proudly. A hiker 获救 after two nights on the mountain, helicopter footage looping on the evening news. A student's project 荣获 first prize at the science fair — and her little brother 获罪 for eating the celebration cake early.

Why this character belongs on skin

The hunt ends in the hand. Huò is the taking — the grain gathered at season's end, the quarry run down and held, the hard-won thing finally yours after the long pursuit. The old script set it in field and hound, as if success were always a kind of patient chasing. To获 is not to be given but to have earned, the harvest that answers the labor. The Daoist knows the crop comes only to the one who stayed through the drought; the Christian sees the harvest as the season of accounting. Wear it where the hand closes, the palm or the fingers. Let it mark the things you did not receive but seized — the love, the peace, the self — proof that what is yours was hunted for, and caught, and kept against the odds.