Today we examine a new Chinese character 小. What could be its meaning? A better way is to check its Oracle Script and Clerical Script, as shown below: (screenshot taken from http://chinese-linguipedia.org )
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Learn one Chinese Character a day - 小 |
From its Oracle Scripts

and

, it is believed that Chinese ancestors used 3 or 4 dots to mean
sands at the river bank. As sands is very small, 小 is then used to mean
Small. We will later show you one proof which supports this guess.
And from its Warring State Script

till its Clerical Script

, we can also explain that

is composed of
八 and

, 八 originally meant Divide, in this way

means to divide

to make it smaller. So

means
Small.
That is it. Now let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 小 inside:
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会当凌绝顶一览众山小 |
As we have learnt 小 and 大, can you guess what could be the meaning of 尖 then?
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