老
lǎo HSK1

old

老 lǎo
old adjective
old; aged; (of people) venerable

我不觉得我那么老了。

wǒ bù jué​de wǒ nà​me lǎo le.

I don't feel that old.

[familiarity prefix] adjectiveaffix
prefix used before a surname to indicate familiarity or respect
long-standing adjective
of long standing; existing for a long time; original; former

吓跑新客户比失去老客户更糟。

xià pǎo xīn kè​hù bǐ shī​qù lǎo kè​hù gèng zāo.

Scaring away new customers is worse than losing old ones.

老故事就像老朋友。

lǎo gù​shi jiù xiàng lǎo​péng​you.

Old stories are like old friends.

[animal prefix] noun
Prefix used in the common names of certain animals.
always adverb
always; all the time; constantly; habitually

你为什么老打电话？

nǐ wèi​shén​me lǎo dǎ diàn​huà?

Why do you keep calling?

experienced nounadjective
experienced; skilled; having long practice in a field
outdated adjective
outdated; old-fashioned; obsolete

房子是有点老了。

fáng​zi shì yǒu​diǎn lǎo le.

The house is a bit old.

very adverbadjective
very; quite; for a long time
Laos proper noun
(abbreviation) Laos
the elderly noun
old people; the aged; one's parents or elders
tough adjective
(of food) tough; overcooked; (of vegetables) overgrown; past their prime

这条鱼煮老了。

zhè tiáo yú zhǔ lǎo le.

This fish is overcooked.

[ordinal prefix] noun
prefix used before numbers to indicate order of birth among siblings
dark
(of colors) dark; deep; heavy
to die
(euphemism) to pass away; to die
Laozi
short for Laozi 老子 lǎo​zi or the philosophy of Taoism
surname
a Chinese surname
radical
the 125th Kangxi radical
youngest
(of siblings or relatives) the youngest; ranking last
to respect
(literary) to respect; to treat with the respect due to an elder
to retire
(literary) to retire from office; to resign due to old age

Cross-References

Abbreviation of

Antonym

Frequency
Character
Written text
179th most common 1152.7 per million
Movie subtitles
161st most common 1124.8 per million appears in 95% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
490.4 per million appears in 73% of films
Written text
356.8 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 1
HSK 3.0
Level 1
Strokes
6
Unicode
U+8001

Sources
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)