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寡

guǎ
adjective #16,850

Meanings

  1. 1 few
  2. 2 scant
  3. 3 widowed

Examples

HSK 4
这道菜味道太寡了。
Zhè dào cài wèidào tài guǎ le.
This dish tastes too bland.
HSK 7-9
寡不敌众，我们必须撤退。
Guǎbùdízhòng, wǒmen bìxū chètuì.
We're outnumbered and must retreat.

Tips

usage
寡 often appears in literary or formal contexts. In everyday speech, 少 is far more common for 'few'. 寡 carries a sense of isolation or insufficiency.
memory
The character has 宀 (roof) over 頁 - picture a widow alone under a roof, with few people around.

Components

radical
宀 mián
roof; shelter
Top roof radical - pictograph of a peaked house with sloping eaves. The indexing radical, setting the scene: 寡 pictures a lone figure inside an empty house. From that bleak image came 'few, scarce, widowed' (寡妇 widow, 寡言 reticent). Same roof-family: 家 home, 安 safe, 寒 cold, 寂 quiet - rooms with a feeling.
semantic
頁 yè
head; page
Middle 頁 - pictograph of a person's head with face emphasised; inside 寡 the traditional 9-stroke form is preserved (standalone 页 was reduced to 6 strokes in 1956, but here the older shape was kept). Carries the meaning 'a single person' - one head alone under the roof - central to 寡's 'solitary, few' senses.
semantic
刀 dāo
knife
Bottom 刀 - pictograph of a single-edged blade with a curved back. Here the knife is severance: the cutting-away of company, kin, or words. Combined with the lone head under a roof, the picture becomes 'a person whose connections have been cut' - exactly the widow / solitary / sparse senses 寡 carries. A bleak but tightly composed three-part ideograph.

Stroke Order

寡 guǎ