characters - What is the meaning of 么? - Chinese Language Stack Exchange 么 has lost most of its lexical meaning in modern usage, but it appears to have originally been derived from the word 物, meaning 'thing' Chinese by Jerry Norman, pp 119-20 makes mention of the etymology of various modern words featuring 么:
Questions ending with 么: Do 么 and 吗 have the exact same meaning? 么 at the end of the sentence can both have the meaning of 吗 or that of 嘛 If you look-up 吗 and 嘛 in 《现代汉语词典》 么 is mentioned as alternative (but the pinyin is still ma!) 吗 and 嘛 seem to be newer variants of 么 These last years I've seen it used a lot in songs, on QQ and Weibo