DICTIONARY · CC-CEDICT

老牛吃嫩草

Mandarin · pinyin lǎo niú chī nèn cǎo

lit. an old cow eats young grass (idiom)
fig. a May-December relationship
a romance where the man is significantly older than the woman

Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

老: lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
牛: niú · cow, ox, bull; Kangxi radical 93; 9th lunar mansion, determinative star β Capricorni (Dabih)
吃: chī · eat; drink; suffer, endure, bear
嫩: nèn · soft, tender, delicate; young
草: cǎo · grass, straw, thatch, herbs

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

Explore the spelling

Mandarin tones

3–2–1–4–3 · lao3 niu2 chi1 nen4 cao3

Compare attested words with these syllables ↗

Dictionary tones. Connected speech can change their realization.

Connected dictionary

5character 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.

老牛吃嫩草 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense

Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

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

phrase

(idiomatic) May-December relationship; to rob the cradle; a romance where one partner is significantly older than the other

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

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