小
- small, little;
- smallness, small things;
Etymology
小 is an ideogram formed by three dots or three slightly elongated vertical strokes.
Shuowen Jiezi explains that the middle stroke splits the character 八 (eight), but oracle bone script shows three separate dots, so this explanation is incorrect.
The three dots symbolize small objects like beans or grains of sand clustered together.
Scholars believe that since the character 沙 (sand) is composed with 小, it likely represents grains of sand.
Words that derived from 小
- 미소하다(微小하다)–very little; microscopic; extremely small
- 소(小)–small
- 소대(小隊)–platoon
- 소매(小賣)–retail
- 소변(小便)–urine
- 소수(小數)–decimal
- 소수점(小數點)–decimal point
- 소식(小食)–light eating; eating little
- 소위(小尉)–second lieutenant
- 소자(小子)–I; me
- 소자본(小資本)–little capital; limited capital
- 소장(小腸)–small intestine
- 약소국(弱小國)–small and weak nation; minor nation
- 최소(最小)–the least; the fewest; minimum
小
작을
소
jageul
so
Kangxi radical:42
Strokes:3
Unicode:U+2F29
Cangjie input:
- 弓金 (NC)
Composition:
- ⿻ 亅 八
- ⿲ 丿 亅 丶
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