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船老大

Mandarin · pinyin chuán lǎo dà

coxswain
steersman
boatswain (bo'sun)

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Characters in this entry

船: chuán · ship, boat, vessel
老: lǎo · old, aged; experienced; Kangxi radical 125
大: dà · big, great, vast, large, high

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

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Mandarin tones

2–3–4 · chuan2 lao3 da4

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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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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

syun4 lou5 daai6

Cantonese word readings for 船老大. 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

(nautical) coxswain; helmsman; chief crewman
(nautical, in general) boatman

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

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