少爺

简 少爷 · 繁 少爺
Mandarin · pinyin shào ye

Meanings

  1. son of the boss
  2. young master of the house
  3. your son (honorific)
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Characters in this entry

少
shǎo · few, less, inadequate
爺
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爷
yé · father, grandfather
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–5 · shao4 ye5

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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.

少爺 · find source passages ↗ · 少爷 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

siu3 je4

Cantonese word readings for 少爺. 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

  1. young master (form of address formerly used by a servant to address his or her master's son)
  2. young man (often pampered) from a wealthy or noble family
  3. (archaic, honorific) (somebody's, your) son

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

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack