Chinese symbol for “appetizer”
小菜
xiǎo cài
appetizer; small side dish; easy job; piece of cake
The closest CC-CEDICT match for appetizer is 小菜 (xiǎo cài), defined as: appetizer; small side dish; easy job; piece of cake; see also 小菜一碟 (xiǎo cài yī dié).
Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.
Characters and stroke order
Other Chinese words for “appetizer”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 前菜 | qián cài | appetizer; starter; hors d'oeuvre |
| 开胃菜 (開胃菜) | kāi wèi cài | starter; appetizer |
| 冷盆 | lěng pén | cold dish; appetizer |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 小菜.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 小时 (小時) | xiǎo shí | hour |
| 小说 (小說) | xiǎo shuō | novel; fiction |
| 小学 (小學) | xiǎo xué | elementary school; primary school |
| 小姐 | xiǎo jie | young lady; miss |
| 小组 (小組) | xiǎo zǔ | group |
| 小孩 | xiǎo hái | child; 个 (gè) |
| 蔬菜 | shū cài | vegetables |
| 菜单 (菜單) | cài dān | menu; measure word: 份 (fèn), 张 (zhāng) |
See also: Japanese symbol for “appetizer”.
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.