老太太
lǎotàitài · HSK 3
old lady
👵 老 lǎo (old) + 太太 tàitài (madam/wife) — repeating 太 marks affection
太太 on its own means wife or Mrs.; doubling a kinship term in Mandarin softens it into something warm and familiar. Add 老 (old) and you get a respectful, affectionate word for an elderly woman or one's own mother.
老 — old man 耂 + 匕 (bent figure)
Originally a pictograph of an elderly person with long hair leaning on a cane. The top 耂 depicts the hair and stooped body, while 匕 at the bottom represents the cane or a bent figure. The core meaning 'old' has remained stable since oracle bone script.
太 — 大 'big' + extra dot 丶
太 originally derived from 大 ('big, person with arms outstretched') with an added stroke to mean 'greatest' or 'too much'. The extra dot intensifies 大, signaling something beyond merely big. Over time it came to mean 'very', 'too', or 'highest'.
太 — 大 'big' + extra dot 丶
太 originally derived from 大 ('big, person with arms outstretched') with an added stroke to mean 'greatest' or 'too much'. The extra dot intensifies 大, signaling something beyond merely big. Over time it came to mean 'very', 'too', or 'highest'.