少 — Chinese character
少
shǎo
few, little; less; inadequate
- Pinyin
- shǎo
- Radical
- 42 ⼩ (Small)
- Strokes
- 4
- Components
- 小 丿
- Formation
- pictographic — Grains of sand; 小 provides the pronunciation and meaning
- Japanese
- 少 as a kanji
Common words with 少
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 多少 | duō shǎo | number; amount; somewhat |
| 多少 | duō shao | how much?; how many?; (phone number, student ID etc) what number? |
| 减少 (減少) | jiǎn shǎo | to lessen; to decrease; to reduce; to lower |
| 至少 | zhì shǎo | at least; (to say the) least |
| 不少 | bù shǎo | many; quite a few; a good number of |
| 少数 (少數) | shǎo shù | small number; few |
| 少女 | shào nǚ | girl; young lady |
| 少年 | shào nián | early youth; youngster |
| 青少年 | qīng shào nián | adolescent; youth |
| 缺少 | quē shǎo | lack; shortage of |
| 少数民族 (少數民族) | shǎo shù mín zú | ethnic minority |
| 少量 | shǎo liàng | a smidgen; a little bit |
English words written with 少
少 in the Chinese classics
Occurrences: Tao Te Ching 4 · Analects 8 · Art of War 5 · Mencius 6 · Zhuangzi 37
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 19
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 22
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 47
- Tao Te Ching Chapter 63
- Analects 5.25
- Analects 9.6
- Analects 9.9
- Analects 13.8
Data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.