lǎo /
noun #52,446

Meanings

  1. 1 maternal grandmother
  2. 2 old woman

Examples

Xiǎoshíhou lǎolao cháng gěi wǒ jiǎng gùshi.
When I was little, Grandma often told me stories.
Zhège zhōumò wǒmen qù lǎolao lǎoye jiā.
This weekend we are going to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
Tā de gūlǎolao cóng xiāngxià lái zuòkè.
Her great-aunt has come to visit from the countryside.

Tips

mistakes
Read lǎo in the everyday word 姥姥 (mother's mother), the northern counterpart of 外婆. A separate literary reading mǔ appears in old poetry like Li Bai's 天姥 mountain.

Components

radical
woman; female
The woman radical on the left marks this as a female relative or elderly woman, fitting for a word meaning grandmother.
phonetic
lǎo
old; aged
On the right it supplies the sound and the meaning together: gives the lǎo reading and directly evokes an elderly person, here an old woman or grandmother.

Stroke Order

lǎo