三姑六婆

Mandarin · pinyin sān gū liù pó

Meanings

  1. women with disreputable or illegal professions (idiom)
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

三
sān · three
姑
gū · father's sister; husband's mother
六
liù · number six
婆
pó · old woman; grandmother
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–1–4–2 · san1 gu1 liu4 po2

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

4character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.
Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

saam1 gu1 luk6 po4

Cantonese word readings for 三姑六婆. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

CanCLID contributors · CC BY 4.0 · source & license · Data pack

saam1 gu1 luk6 po4

Pleco · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Word reading; meanings not aligned.

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) women with disreputable or illegal professions
  2. (figurative) (female) gossipmongers

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source & license · Data pack