老夫老妻

Mandarin · pinyin lǎo fū lǎo qī

Meanings

  1. long-married couple
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Characters in this entry

老
lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
夫
fū · man, male adult, husband; those
妻
qī · wife
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

3–1–3–1 · lao3 fu1 lao3 qi1

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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 · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

lou5 fu1 lou5 cai1

Cantonese word readings for 老夫老妻. 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.

phrase

  1. (idiomatic) old married couple

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

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