漢字Kanji · in States & Attributes
少: few, little
小 and 丿 carry the meaning
Oracle bone · Shang Today
Oracle bone: Wikimedia Commons, traced from Academia Sinica, CC0. Today’s form: KanjiVG, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Three readings, and the words that use each
ショウshou · on'yomi · in compounds
- 少々しょうしょうsmall quantity, a little
- 少数しょうすうminority
- 少量しょうりょうsmall quantity
- 少額しょうがくsmall sum (of money)
- 多少たしょうmore or less
- 少年しょうねんboy
- 減少するげんしょうするdecrease [v.i.]
すくないsukunai · kun'yomi · on its own
- 少ないすくないa few, a little
- 少なくともすくなくともat least
すこしsukoshi · kun'yomi
- 少しすこしsmall quantity, a little
Words: Kanji alive, CC BY 4.0.
Where it comes from
Origin · sourced
Pictogram (象形)
Four dots, perhaps three grains of sand (see 沙), to indicate "a few, a little". Phonetically borrowed from 小 (“small”), which is depicted by three dots.
Source: Wiktionary, 少 (rev. 92200349), CC BY-SA 4.0
Memory story · made up to help you remember
“Small (小) + a diagonal stroke. Represents something that is even "smaller" or less than small—the concept of having only a "few" or a "little" amount.”
Connections
In ChineseSame character in simplified and traditional · shǎo
Same form: 少 is written the same way in mainland China (simplified) and in Taiwan and Hong Kong (traditional).
- Simplified
- 少 mainland China, Singapore
- Traditional
- 少 Taiwan, Hong Kong
Pinyin shǎo most common reading
Forms and pinyin: Unicode Unihan database (Unicode License v3). Pinyin lists the most common reading, not every reading.