King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “hackneyed”

老套
lǎo tào
hackneyed; well-worn (phrase etc); same old story; stereotypical fashion

The closest CC-CEDICT match for hackneyed is 老套 (lǎo tào), defined as: hackneyed; well-worn (phrase etc); same old story; stereotypical fashion.

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

老 lǎo
old, aged; experienced
radical 125 ⽼ · 6 strokes
套 tào
case, cover, envelope, wrapper
radical 37 ⼤ · 10 strokes

Other Chinese words for “hackneyed”

WordPinyinMeaning
老梗lǎo gěng(Tw) unoriginal; hackneyed; (of a joke) old

Related words

Other words that share a character with 老套.

WordPinyinMeaning
老师 (老師)lǎo shīteacher
老婆lǎo pó(coll.) wife
老板lǎo bǎnvariant of 老板 (lǎo bǎn)
老人lǎo rénold man or woman; the elderly
老公lǎo gōng(coll.) husband
一套yī tàosuit; a set
配套pèi tàoto form a complete set; compatible
套餐tào cānset meal; (fig.) product or service package (e.g. for a cell phone subscription)

See also: Japanese symbol for “hackneyed”.

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.

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