少
shǎo
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Few, little; not many, not much. It is the opposite of 多, and the two together make the question word 多少 'how many, how much'. As a predicate it normally takes 很: 人很少 'there are few people'. Before a verb, 很少 means 'seldom' (我很少喝茶 'I seldom drink tea') and bare 少 means 'less': 少说话 'talk less'.
Ít: số lượng nhỏ, không nhiều. Trái nghĩa với 多; hai chữ ghép lại thành từ để hỏi 多少 (bao nhiêu). Làm vị ngữ thường có 很: 人很少 (ít người). 很少 trước động từ là “ít khi”: 我很少喝茶 (tôi ít khi uống trà); còn 少 trước động từ là “… ít thôi”: 少说话 (nói ít thôi).
AdjectiveRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 063 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “少” mean?
Few, little; not many, not much. It is the opposite of 多, and the two together make the question word 多少 'how many, how much'. As a predicate it normally takes 很: 人很少 'there are few people'. Before a verb, 很少 means 'seldom' (我很少喝茶 'I seldom drink tea') and bare 少 means 'less': 少说话 'talk less'.
Is “少” formal or informal?
少 is generally neutral.