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笑

Mandarin · pinyin xiào

to laugh; to smile
to laugh at

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笑: xiào · smile, laugh, giggle; snicker

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

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Mandarin tones

4 · xiao4

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1character link23same-tone records

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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.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

siu3

Cantonese word readings for 笑. 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.

character

(intransitive) to laugh; to smile
(transitive) to laugh at; to ridicule
(ditransitive) to laugh at; to ridicule
(literary, or in compounds) funny; amusing
(obsolete, figurative) to blossom; to bloom
(rare) a surname
(Xiamen Hokkien) lying face-up toward the sky; supine
(Quanzhou and Taiwanese Hokkien) to split open on the top after cooking when fermentation and heat are well-controlled (of a rice cake bowl)

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

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