老 (lou5 | lao3) : old, venerable

Remove Adverts and gain lots of extra features
What is this page showing me?

老

lou5

lao3

[1] old; aged; venerable [2] always [3] the youngest [4] very [5] a particle indicating ordinal numbers to designate order of birth [6] parents; [7] a particle used before a man's family name to indicate familiarity and friendship [8] tough (meat); overcooked [9] [v] treat with the reverence [10] dark (color) [11] [Wu] very

Default PoS:

Additional PoS:

Stroke count: 6

Level: 2

Radical: 老 (#125)

This character is used in both Cantonese and Mandarin/Standard written Chinese.

老

Don't confuse with:
考

This word has been viewed 31793 times since 30th Oct 2012, was added by sheik on 18th Mar 2007 21:22 and last edited on 15th Jul 2009 14:57

Output this character as a high resolution image

老師 lou5 si1 lao3 shi1 = teacher

老友 lou5 jau5 lao3 you3 = old friend, good friend

老朋 lou5 pang4*2/paang4*2 lao3 peng2 = old friend 粵

老朋友 lou5 pang4 jau5 lao3 peng2 you3 = old friend

老點 lou5 dim2 = to trick 粵

古老 gu2 lou5 gu3 lao3 = [1] ancient; [2] old-fashioned

聖誕老人 sing3 daan3 lou5 jan4 sheng4 dan4 lao3 ren2 = Father Christmas (Santa Claus)

老鼠 lou5 syu2 lao3 shu3 = mouse; [粵]: Mr. Nobody

老虎 lou5 fu2 lao3 hu3 = tiger; [粵]: a powerful person in the criminal underworld

老婆 lou5 po4 lao3 po2 = wife
See all 287 compounds (CantoDict reports 300 compounds in total, but some may be Common Formations)

Showing all 32 examples containing 老

我個中文老師好好人㗎粵
My Chinese teacher is a very nice person.

我越老越冇記性。粵
As I get older, I get more forgetful.

老點我呀! 粵
You cheated me!

你信唔信有聖誕老人呀? 粵
Do you believe in Father Christmas?

你相信有聖誕老公公嗎？國
Do you believe in Father Christmas?

若果你唔乖﹐聖誕老人就唔送禮物畀你粵
If you aren't a good boy, Santa won't bring you any presents.

你不乖的話，聖誕老公公就不會送你禮物了！國
If you aren't a good boy, Santa won't bring you any presents!

老虎的身上有很多黑棕色的條紋國
A tiger has many black-brown stripes on its body.

佢係個好老闆粵
He is a nice boss.

其實呢，我有老公㗎…仲有個女添粵
Actually, I have a husband... and a daughter to boot!
[呢 is sometimes used to separate conjunctive adverbs from the rest of the sentence: equally valid would be 咁其實呢.]

老細話去邊﹐我哋就去邊。粵
We'll go wherever the boss says.
[Cantonese sentences often feature a balanced structure with repetitive wordings rather than a simple structure. ]

漢字是歷史上最古老的文字之一，大概四千歲了。國
Chinese characters are one of history's most ancient writing scripts, approximately four thousand years old.

我畀人搵老襯。粵
Someone tricked me.

我的老天爺啊！國
Oh, my God!

你栽培我成為老師
You trained me to become a teacher

佢枕住健身個肌肉都係咁鬆婄,只得半粒老鼠仔咋粵
He has been working out for a long time, yet his muscles are still soft, with only half-developed biceps.

啲老樹好多根蔃粵
These old trees have lots of roots.

老細請呢餐我哋都食到依牙鬆槓粵
The treat from my boss was wonderful and the food was great!

老細畀啲工人激到佢七竅生煙粵
Boss got really pissed off by the workers.

佢老婆起佢尾注擸晒啲錢跟佬走咗粵
His wife took all his money and eloped with another man already.

畀機會我做個稱職嘅老婆粵
Give me a chance to be a good and competent wife.

老師帶我哋去參觀二次大戰博物館同軍人塚。粵
The teacher brought us to the museum and memorial tombs of World War II.

咪又係我呢條老鬼！粵
It's just me, the old guy!

老虎竟然識食紅蘿蔔，真係咄咄怪事！
Tigers that eat carrots? How strange is that?!

我未試過對我老婆唔住，你呢？粵
I have never cheated on my wife, (how about) you? [Literally] I haven't tried (and did something that I) cannot face to my wife, you?
[whether it means "cannot face to/cannot confront with" or "sorry",to 對唔住 someone you're romantically involved,it mostly refers to you "cheat". Otherwise, it can means you did something that disappointed the other or you let someone down.]

唔好摸啲老鼠啦，佢哋污糟邋遢粵
Don't touch the rats, they're extremely dirty.
[You could also add in a 好 in this case (i.e. 佢哋好污糟邋遢) with no real difference in meaning.]

監考老師盯得太緊
The exam proctor is watching too closely.

佢經常遲到﹐ 搞到老闆好唔高興。粵
He is always late, which makes his boss very upset.
[Cantonese grammar does not need a relative pronoun (which) to introduce a subordinate clause.]

個老婆大人矋住佢，佢又點敢出聲吖粵
How would he be so daring as to utter a word, under the staring eyes of his wife.

雖然你老公喺出便嫖賭飲吹，但至少佢識賺錢返嚟養家，你咪冇眼屎乾淨盲囉粵
Despite all the vices outside, your husband brings home money to support the family, you should just pretend you don't know and choose to be happy.

近來傳出啲流言蜚語，話老闆畀人捉黃腳雞粵
Recently there has been all these slanderous tales about the boss being blackmailed for having some extra-marital affair.

“自學”，顧名思義，就是不在學校學，也沒有老師指點，全靠自己學習。
As the name implies, "Self-study" does not involve going to school where teachers are there to teach and guide; one learns on his own.

Legend
國 : This term is used in Mandarin/Standard written Chinese, not Cantonese.
粵 : This term is used in Cantonese, not Mandarin/Standard written Chinese.
No icon: This term is used in both Cantonese and Mandarin/Standard written Chinese.

Forum Code to link to this word:
[big][url=http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/213/]老[/url][/big]
HTML Code to link to this word:
<a href="http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/characters/213/" class="chinesemed" target="_blank">老</a>
Decimal representation of this word: 老
Unicode code for this character: U+8001 (off-site link)

Search CantoDict (safe search is on)

Please note, CantoDict currently supports searching for Simplified Chinese, but results will be returned in Traditional Chinese.

Hide Written and Spoken Hide Written 國 Hide Spoken粵


Characters \| Words \| Sentences \| Chinese Translation \| Chinese Tests \| Forums \| Search Customise CantoDict \| My Vocab Lists \| Useful Reports and Stats \| CantoDict Forum