lǎo
old
Pictograph of an old person with long hair bent over and leaning on a cane.
Oracle script
(~1250-1000 BC)
Bronze script
Late Western Zhou (~800 BC)
Seal script
Shuowen (~100 AD)
Clerical script
Jin dynasty (266-420 AD)Regular script
Modernlǎo
old, aged; experienced; 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or familiarity; old (of people); venerable (person); of long standing; always; all the time; of the past; very; outdated; (of meat etc) tough
Freq. | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
always | ||
teacher | ||
boss | ||
(coll.) wife | ||
'old chap' (form of address between male friends) |
Iconic component in 1 character (1 verified)
Remnant component in 1 character (1 verified)
Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Pinyin | Gloss |
*C.rˤuʔ | lawX | lǎo | old |
HSK level 1
Appears in 95.3067% of movies
161st most common character in movies
179th most common character in books
Strokes | 6 |
Unicode | U+8001 |
Shuowen | “老，考也。七十曰老。从人、毛、匕。言須髮變白也。” |
