DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

小蠻腰

简小蛮腰 · 繁小蠻腰

Mandarin · pinyin xiǎo mán yāo

slim feminine waist; willow waist (from the name of a Tang dynasty woman Xiao Man, famed for her slender waist)

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

小: xiǎo · small, tiny, insignificant
蠻: Look up this written character
腰: yāo · waist; kidney
蛮: mán · barbarians; barbarous, savage

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

3–2–1 · xiao3 man2 yao1

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

3character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

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.

小蠻腰 · find source passages ↗ · 小蛮腰 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

(slang) slim waist (of a young woman)

name

(slang) Canton Tower

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

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