DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

太祖

Mandarin · pinyin tài zǔ

Great Ancestor (posthumous title, e.g. for the founder of a dynasty)

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

太: tài · very, too, much; big; extreme
祖: zǔ · ancestor, forefather; grandfather

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

4–3 · tai4 zu3

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

2character links

Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗

Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

太祖 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

name

Founding Ancestor (temple name used for Chinese emperors who founded a particular dynasty, or Korean monarchs who founded the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties)
Founding Ancestor (temple name used for Chinese emperors who founded a particular dynasty, or Korean monarchs who founded the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties) — (by extension, slang, neologism) a nickname for Mao Zedong

name

(Xiamen Hokkien) great-great-grandfather (paternal grandfather's paternal grandfather)

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

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