苗

Mandarin · pinyin miáo#

Meanings · miáo

  1. young plant; seedling
  2. (bound form) young animal raised for farming or aquaculture (e.g. 魚苗 yú miáo)
  3. (bound form) offspring; descendant
  4. (bound form) sign or indication of sth (e.g. 苗頭 miáo tou, 礦苗 kuàng miáo)
  5. (bound form) vaccine
Mandarin · pinyin Miáo#

Meanings · Miáo

  1. surname Miao
  2. Miao ethnic group
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Characters in this entry

苗
miáo · sprouts; Miao nationality
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2 · miao2

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1character link8same-tone records3source references
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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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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 8 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

miu4

Cantonese word readings for 苗. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

character · Etymology 1

  1. young plant (e.g. seedling, sapling); shoot arising from the ground (Classifier: 株; 根)
  2. shoot-like object
  3. descendant (of a family); offspring
  4. symptom (of a trend)
  5. young (of an animal)
  6. (abbreviation, alt-of) short for 疫苗 (yìmiáo, “vaccine”)
  7. the Miao peoples (including Hmong, Hmu, A-Hmao, Qo Xiong, etc.)
  8. a surname

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

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

苗 · miao2 · Miao2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source lines 93,565, 93,564
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source records苗 苗 [miao2] /young plant; seedling/(bound form) young animal raised for farming or aquaculture (e.g. 魚苗|鱼苗[yu2 miao2])/(bound form) offspring; descendant/(bound form) sign or indication of sth (e.g. 苗頭|苗头[miao2 tou5], 礦苗|矿苗[kuang4 miao2])/(bound form) vaccine/苗 苗 [Miao2] /surname Miao/Miao ethnic group/