About
The character "麽" has a traditional form composed of the component "麻" above "幺", with "麻" suggesting a sense of fineness or minuteness through its association with hemp fiber, while "幺" itself denotes something small. Historically, it functioned primarily as a grammatical particle in classical Chinese, often appearing at the end of sentences to denote a questioning tone. Its semantic role later expanded and solidified within the compound "什麽", meaning "what", where it contributes to the interrogative sense without independent meaning. The character’s simplified contemporary form, "么", is a direct graphical reduction that retains the "幺" component, thus preserving a visual connection to the idea of smallness or insignificance which aligns with its modern usage as a suffix denoting diminution or informality in words like "什麽" and "這麽".
Example Sentences Hide
這是什麽東西？
他這麽快就回來了。
那麽我們開始吧。
多麽美麗的風景啊！
你要麽去要麽留。
你知道這是什麽意思嗎？
無論多麽困難，我們都要堅持。
他這麽做一定有他的理由，不然不會那麽堅決。