儿｜兒

Our character today 儿 is so simple that we can hardly guess anything by itself. 

And its traditional script 兒 provides no more help as well this time. Adding 臼 on top of 儿 makes it even more confusing.

Let us see whether we can get any help from its ancient scripts: (image taken from http://vividict.com/)

Evolution history of 儿｜兒

Looking at its Oracle script , its upper part is and bottom part is .  is what we are already familiar with - people / person. What is the meaning that  represents?

It is reasonable to guess that Chinese ancestors wanted to emphasize some unique characteristics of the head of certain person.

Looking back at the Seal Script with its upper part as  and the Regular script with its upper part as , all of them, including ,  emphasized the fact that the top of skull of a baby is not fully closed. Bottom part of 兒 is transformed from to 儿 along the time and 儿 is unique enough to be used alone without 臼.

So 儿｜兒 means very young kids - Toddler. 

That is all for today, let us enjoy a Chinese calligraphy with 儿｜兒 inside:

五花马，千金裘， 呼儿将出换美酒，与尔同销万古愁。