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老人家

Mandarin · pinyin lǎo rén jiā

polite term for old woman or man

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Characters in this entry

老: lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
人: rén · man; people; mankind; someone else
家: jiā · house, home, residence; family

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

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Mandarin tones

3–2–1 · lao3 ren2 jia1

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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.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 2 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

lou5 jan4 gaa1

Cantonese word readings for 老人家. 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

(polite, term of address) venerable old person; elderly man or woman
(polite, non-face-to-face term of address) parents (of the speaker or another person)

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

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