男兒

简 男儿 · 繁 男兒
Mandarin · pinyin nán ér

Meanings

  1. a (real) man
  2. boy
  3. son
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Characters in this entry

男
nán · male, man; son; baron; surname
兒
ér · son, child, oneself; final part
儿
ér · son, child; Kangxi radical 10
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–2 · nan2 er2

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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.

男兒 · find source passages ↗ · 男儿 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

naam4 ji4

Cantonese word readings for 男兒. 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. man; real man
  2. (literary) son
  3. (archaic) one's own husband

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

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