Chinese symbol for “lessen”

减少

jiǎn shǎo

Traditional: 減少

to lessen; to decrease; to reduce; to lower

The closest CC-CEDICT match for lessen is 减少 (jiǎn shǎo), defined as: to lessen; to decrease; to reduce; to lower.

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

减 jiǎn

to decrease, to subtract, to diminish

radical 15 ⼎ · 11 strokes

少 shǎo

few, little; less; inadequate

radical 42 ⼩ · 4 strokes

Traditional forms

減 jiǎn

Other Chinese words for “lessen”

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
裁减 (裁減)	cái jiǎn	to reduce; to lessen
减除 (減除)	jiǎn chú	to reduce; to lessen (pain etc)

Related words

Other words that share a character with 减少.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
减轻 (減輕)	jiǎn qīng	to lighten; to ease
减肥 (減肥)	jiǎn féi	to lose weight
削减 (削減)	xuē jiǎn	to cut down; to reduce
减弱 (減弱)	jiǎn ruò	to weaken; to diminish
缩减 (縮減)	suō jiǎn	to cut; to reduce
多少	duō shǎo	number; amount; somewhat
至少	zhì shǎo	at least; (to say the) least
不少	bù shǎo	many; quite a few; a good number of

See also: Japanese symbol for “lessen”.

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.