Chinese symbol for “elderly”
老年
lǎo nián
elderly; old age; autumn of one's years
The closest CC-CEDICT match for elderly is 老年 (lǎo nián), defined as: elderly; old age; autumn of one's years.
Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.
Characters and stroke order
Other Chinese words for “elderly”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 高龄 (高齡) | gāo líng | elderly |
| 老年人 | lǎo nián rén | old people; the elderly |
| 老人 | lǎo rén | old man or woman; the elderly |
| 银发族 (銀髮族) | yín fà zú | the elderly |
| 迈 (邁) | mài | to step; to stride; (bound form) old; elderly |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 老年.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 老师 (老師) | lǎo shī | teacher |
| 老婆 | lǎo pó | (coll.) wife |
| 老板 | lǎo bǎn | variant of 老板 (lǎo bǎn) |
| 老人 | lǎo rén | old man or woman; the elderly |
| 老公 | lǎo gōng | (coll.) husband |
| 年代 | nián dài | a decade of a century (e.g. the Sixties); age |
| 今年 | jīn nián | this year |
| 每年 | měi nián | every year; each year |
See also: Japanese symbol for “elderly”.
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.