Xiao

//ʃjaʊ// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A type of Chinese flute.

    "Chou studied violin and erhu (a two-stringed Chinese fiddle) and tried to emulate his second brother by dabbling in the harmonica, mandolin, xiao (a vertical Chinese flute), and the musical saw."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
  2. 2
    Usually attached to a surname, signifying a little one, junior, small guy, younger person.

Synonyms

All synonyms
siau

Example

More examples

"Ming Xiao doesn't know yet where he will go next year."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 簫 /箫 (xiāo).

Etymology 2

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin for 肖 (Xiāo) and 蕭／萧 (Xiāo).

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Mandarin 小 (xiǎo).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.