叟 (sǒu): old man

Meanings

1 old man
2 elderly gentleman

Characters

叟

sǒu

old man (single-character word)

Examples

一位白发叟坐在村口的大树下。

Yī wèi báifà sǒu zuò zài cūnkǒu de dàshù xià.

A white-haired old man sat under the big tree at the village entrance.

老叟讲述着当年的故事。

Lǎo sǒu jiǎngshù zhe dāngnián de gùshi.

The old man recounted stories from the old days.

Tips

register

叟 is a literary or classical term for an old man, rarely used in everyday modern Mandarin. It appears in historical novels, classical texts, and poetry. In conversation, 老人 or 老头 is used instead.

Components

radical

又 yòu

hand; again

Bottom 又 — the right hand, classical pictograph and indexing radical. Beneath the torch-and-hands shape above, this second 又 represents the elder's steadying hand, giving the 'old man' reading. Same radical anchors 友 friend, 取 to take, 受 to receive — all hand-action chars.

semantic

臼 jiù

mortar (here graphic residue of hands holding torch)

Top 臼 is the modern stand-in for a pair of hands gripping a torch — the original 叟 pictured an old man holding a flame indoors. Six strokes here cover both the outer cradle shape and the vertical stroke through it; treat it as a graphic relic, not a literal mortar.