老
Tap the pinyin to hear it
prefix used before the surname of a person or a numeral indicating the order of birth of the children in a family or to indicate affection or familiarity; old (of people); venerable (person); experienced; of long standing; always; all the time; of the past; very; outdated; (of meat etc) tough
- HSK 3.0
- Level 1
- Old HSK
- Level 1
- Strokes
- 6
- Radical
- 老 itself
- Structure
- Top–bottom 上下
- Traditional
- 老
- Common rank
- #98
- Unicode
- U+8001
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How 老 is formed
Pictograph (象形字)
A person bent over with long hair 匕 and a crutch; compare 耂
How to remember it
old man · Heisig RSH #1029
土 soil + walking stick + spoon — as a component also called: Santa Claus
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 老
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 老人 | old man or woman; the elderly; one's aged parents or grandparents | |
| 老师 | teacher | |
| 老大不小 | no longer a child (idiom) | |
| 老头子 | (coll.) old man; (said of an aging husband) my old man | |
| 长生不老 | (idiom) to live forever and never grow old | |
| 老人家 | polite term for old woman or man | |
| 老头儿 | see 老頭子|老头子[lao3 tou2 zi5] | |
| 天老儿 | albino (human) | |
| 上有老下有小 | lit. above are the elderly, below are the young (idiom); fig. to have to take care of both… | |
| 老子 | Laozi or Lao-tze (c. 500 BC), Chinese philosopher, the founder of Taoism; the sacred book … | |
| 老子 | father; daddy; "I, your father" (in anger, or out of contempt); I (used arrogantly or jocu… | |
| 老大 | old age; very; eldest child in a family; leader of a group; boss; captain of a boat; leade… | |
| 老头 | old fellow; old man; father; husband | |
| 老中 | (slang) Chinese people; we Chinese (often self-referential, ironic); China; the Chinese si… | |
| 老生 | venerable middle-aged or elderly man, usually wearing an artificial beard (in Chinese oper… | |
| 老儿 | father; husband; old man | |
| 老天 | God; Heavens | |
| 龙头老大 | big boss; leader of a group; dominant (position) | |
| 老小 | the old and the young; the youngest member of the family | |
| 老小老小 | (coll.) as one ages, one becomes more and more like a child |
Sound family
These characters use 老 as their sound component — compare how they read.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 老 sound part | old, aged; experienced | |
| 咾 | onomatopoeic; sound, noise | |
| 栳 | basket | |
| 铑 | rhodium |