老巢

Mandarin · pinyin lǎo cháo

Meanings

  1. (fig.) lair; den; stronghold (esp. of criminals or hostile forces)
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

老
lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
巢
cháo · nest, living quarter in tree
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

3–2 · lao3 chao2

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.

老巢 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

noun

  1. (literally) bird nest
  2. (figurative) lair; den; bandit hideout

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

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