小
xiǎo
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Small, little; of people also young. As a predicate it normally takes 很: 我的家很小 'my home is small'. Its opposite is 大. Before a surname it is a friendly way to address someone younger than oneself: 小王 'Xiao Wang', roughly 'young Wang'.
Nhỏ, bé; nói về người thì còn có nghĩa là ít tuổi. Làm vị ngữ thường có 很: 我的家很小 (nhà tôi rất nhỏ). Trái nghĩa là 大. Đặt trước họ là cách gọi thân mật người ít tuổi hơn mình: 小王 (Tiểu Vương, tức “cậu Vương”, “em Vương”).
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 “小” mean?
Small, little; of people also young. As a predicate it normally takes 很: 我的家很小 'my home is small'. Its opposite is 大. Before a surname it is a friendly way to address someone younger than oneself: 小王 'Xiao Wang', roughly 'young Wang'.
Is “小” formal or informal?
小 is generally neutral.