Radical 42

小
小
小 (U+5C0F) "small, insignificant"
Pronunciations
Pinyin:	xiǎo
Bopomofo:	ㄒㄧㄠˇ
Gwoyeu Romatzyh:	sheau
Wade–Giles:	hsiao3
Cantonese Yale:	síu
Jyutping:	siu2
Pe̍h-ōe-jī:	siáu
Japanese Kana:	ショウ shō (on'yomi); ちい-さい chii-sai (kun'yomi)
Sino-Korean:	소 so
Names
Chinese name(s):	(Top) 小字頭/小字头 xiǎozìtóu
Japanese name(s):	小/しょう shō; (Top) 小頭/しょうがしら shōgashira; (Top) 尚頭/なおがしら naogashira
Hangul:	작을 jageul
Stroke order animation

Radical 42 or radical small (小部) meaning "small" or "insignificant" is one of the 31 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of three strokes.

In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 41 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.

小 is also the 36th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Its inversed form ⺌ is the associated indexing component affiliated to the principal indexing component 小.

Evolution

Oracle bone script character
Bronze script character
Large seal script character
Small seal script character

Derived characters

Strokes	Characters
+0	小
+1	尐少
+2	尒 (=爾 -> 爻) 尓 (=爾) 尔^SC (=爾) 尕
+3	尖尗尘^SC (=塵 -> 土) 当^SC/JP (=當 -> 田)
+5	尙^Kangxi/KO (=尚) 尚
+6	尛尜尝^SC (=嘗/嚐 -> 口)
+9	尞
+10	尟尠
+11	尡

Sinogram

The radical is also used as an independent Chinese character. It is one of the kyōiku kanji or kanji taught in elementary school in Japan.^[1] It is a first grade kanji.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b "The Kyoiku Kanji (教育漢字) - Kanshudo". www.kanshudo.com. Archived from the original on March 24, 2022. Retrieved 2023-05-06.

Literature

Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1.
Lunde, Ken (Jan 5, 2009). "Appendix J: Japanese Character Sets" (PDF). CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Second ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1.