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小兒

简小儿 · 繁小兒

Mandarin · pinyin xiǎo ér#

young child
(humble) my son

Mandarin · pinyin xiǎo r#

(coll.) early childhood
(coll.) baby boy

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Characters in this entry

小: xiǎo · small, tiny, insignificant
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

3–2 · xiao3 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.

小兒 · find source passages ↗ · 小儿 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 4 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

siu2 ji4

Cantonese word readings for 小兒. 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

(literary) small child; infant; children
(humble, dated) my son
(dialectal) youngest son

noun

(Mandarin) erhua form of 小 (xiǎo)

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

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