áo​tóu

first place

鳌头 鰲頭 áo​tóu
first place
(bound form) the top rank; first place; the head of a huge legendary turtle, referring to the place where the top civil service exam candidate stood to receive honors. Usually used in the pattern 独占鳌头 dú​zhàn'áo​tóu
exam winner
(historical) the top successful candidate in the imperial civil service examination.

Frequency

Written text
0.158 per million

Sources

Frequency data
BCC Corpus (BLCU)