不少 (bù shǎo) — quite a few; many | TongTong Chinese Dictionary

Definition

adjective

quite a fewmany

Examples

不少。
Jīn tiān lái le bù shǎo rén.
Quite a few people came today.
不少。
Tā huā le bù shǎo qián mǎi shū.
He spent quite a lot of money on books.
不少。
Zhè ge chéng shì yǒu bù shǎo míng shèng gǔ jì.
This city has many famous historical sites.

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.

不 means not and 少 means few, so the whole means not few, i.e. many.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The picture in 不 originally showed a flower’s calyx; the “no” sense came later from a related character, not from this picture.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The form 少 is drawn as four dots, perhaps three grains of sand, to indicate a few or a little.

Appears in

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