小偷儿
xiǎotōuér · HSK 5
Thief
🦝 小 (small) + 偷 (steal) + 儿 (colloquial suffix) = little thief
小 means small, 偷 means to steal, and 儿 is a Beijing-style diminutive suffix. Together 小偷儿 is the everyday spoken word for a petty thief or pickpocket, with 儿 adding a casual, almost dismissive northern flavor.
小 — three small strokes around a central vertical
小 is a pictograph originally showing three tiny dots or specks, suggesting small particles or grains. Over time the dots became stylized strokes flanking a central line. The core meaning 'small' has stayed remarkably stable from oracle bone script to today.
偷 — person radical 亻 + 俞 (yú, phonetic)
A semantic-phonetic compound: the person radical 亻 signals a human action, while 俞 supplies the sound. Originally 偷 meant 'careless' or 'perfunctory,' and over time it shifted to its modern sense of 'to steal' or 'stealthily.'