小人 xiǎorén

  1. xiǎorén noun a vulgar person; a person of little virtue; xiaoren
    Domain: Literary Chinese 文言文
    Notes: Literally, 小人 means 'a small man' but in Confucian thought it means the opposite of 君子 'a benevolent person.' (Yao 2000, p. 214) For example, 君子周而不比,小人比而不周。 'The superior man [junzi] is catholic [broad-minded] and not partisan. The mean man [xiaoren] is partisan and not catholic [broad-minded.' (Lunyu 2:14, trans. by Legge 1861; CC-CEDICT '小人'; Guoyu '小人' 3)
  2. xiǎorén noun a short person
    Domain: Literary Chinese 文言文
    Notes: In contrast to a 巨人 giant (Guoyu '小人' 1)
  3. xiǎorén noun a commoner
    Domain: Literary Chinese 文言文
    Notes: (CC-CEDICT '小人'; Guoyu '小人' 2)
  4. xiǎorén pronoun I; me
    Domain: Literary Chinese 文言文
    Notes: A humble self reference (CC-CEDICT '小人'; Guoyu '小人' 4)

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