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丫頭

简丫头 · 繁丫頭

Mandarin · pinyin yā tou

girl
servant girl
(used deprecatingly, but sometimes also as a term of endearment)

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Characters in this entry

丫: yā · forked; bifurcation
頭: tóu · head; top; chief, first; boss
头: tóu · head; top; chief, first; boss

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–5 · ya1 tou5

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

丫頭 · find source passages ↗ · 丫头 · find source passages ↗

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

aa1 tau4

Cantonese word readings for 丫頭. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

(literary, literally) (people with) fork-shaped bun
servant girl; maid; young female slave
(colloquial, deprecating or endearing) girl
(colloquial, endearing) daughter

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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