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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.

#34 — to come after, to follow behind, to hesitate

#35 — to walk slowly, slow steps

#36 — evening, dusk, right foot

#37 — large, big, great

#38 — female, woman, daughter

#39 — son, child, baby, male, person, you (second-person pronoun), fruit, seed

#40 — house

#41 — joint, inch (a unit of measurement), small/little, degree of kinship

#42 — small, little, smallness, small things

#43 — lame, crippled, person with a leg disability

#44 — corpse, dead body, a living person who represents the dead person during a rite

#45 — left hand, to sprout

#46 — mountain, grave

#47 — a stream where water flows, river, brook

#48 — master craftsman, master artisan, tool, to make, to build

#49 — self, ego, body

#50 — towel, cloth

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Explore the meaning, etymology and usage of this Chinese character. Learn its radical and how it is applied in Korean language.

Chinese character

Explore 214 Chinese radicals and their derived characters. Sort by radical or stroke count, and view the complete list of official Hanja radicals.

Chinese characters (Hanja)

Chinese characters dictionary

小

Etymology

Characters with 小

Neighboring radicals in the dictionary

References