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王老五

Mandarin · pinyin wáng lǎo wǔ

bachelor (lit. fifth child of the Wangs)

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Characters in this entry

王: wáng · king, ruler; royal; surname
老: lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
五: wǔ · five; surname

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

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Mandarin tones

2–3–3 · wang2 lao3 wu3

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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.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

wong4 lou5 ng5

Cantonese word readings for 王老五. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

(slang, colloquial) bachelor

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

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