小吃 (xiǎo chī) — snack | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

小吃 (xiǎochī) is a "small eats" or snack — especially street food or regional specialties eaten at a stall or shop. It means prepared food you buy, unlike 零食 (packaged between-meal nibbles) and broader than 快餐 (fast food meals).

noun

snack

Measure word · 家

Examples

小吃。
Zhè jiā xiǎo chī hěn hǎo chī.
The snacks at this place are delicious.
小吃。
Yè shì shàng de xiǎo chī hěn shòu huān yíng.
The snacks at the night market are very popular.
小吃？
Nǐ zuì xǐ huan nǎ zhǒng xiǎo chī?
What kind of snack do you like best?

Origin

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

小 “small” and 吃 “eating” combine to mean small portions of food.

Characters in this word

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

八八bāto divide; to separate
丨丨gǔnsmall object

The shape of 小 comes from three small dots, later elongated into its strokes; the apparent parts 八 and 丨 are a later way of seeing it.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

口乞吃

Meaning part形符xíngfú

口口kǒumouth

Sound part声符shēngfú

乞

乞qǐ吃chī

Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

吃 combines 口 (mouth) with 乞, which gives the sound; it originally wrote a word meaning to stutter.

Appears in

HSK 3.0 Level 4 HSK 2.0 Level 5 Food (General)

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