三曹

Mandarin · pinyin Sān Cáo

Meanings

  1. the Three Caos (Cao Cao 曹操 and his sons Cao Pi 曹丕 and Cao Zhi 曹植), who established the Wei or Cao Wei dynasty 曹魏, and were all three noted poets and calligraphers
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

三
sān · three
曹
cáo · ministry officials; surname
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

1–2 · San1 Cao2

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.

三曹 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

三曹 · San1 Cao2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 1,355
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record三曹 三曹 [San1 Cao2] /the Three Caos (Cao Cao 曹操 and his sons Cao Pi 曹丕 and Cao Zhi 曹植), who established the Wei or Cao Wei dynasty 曹魏, and were all three noted poets and calligraphers/