HSK 6 · Body

衰老 shuāilǎo “to grow old” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 衰老 means

  1. to grow old
  2. ageing
  3. to age
  4. to deteriorate with age
  5. old and weak

How to say 衰老

  • Pitch chart of the first tone: stays high and level, 5 to 5 on the five-level scale衰shuāi1st tone, high and level
  • Pitch chart of the third tone: dips low then rises, 2 to 1 to 4 on the five-level scale老lǎo3rd tone, dipping

衰老 in a sentence

  1. 没有人能逃过衰老。

    Méiyǒu rén néng táoguò shuāilǎo.

    No one can escape growing old.

    Sentence #8765233 from Tatoeba

How 衰老 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 衰 (shuāi) with each of its parts in a different colour
衰shuāito decay; to decline; to wane
  • 衣clothes · yī
  • 口mouth · kǒu
  • 一one · yī
The character 老 (lǎo) with each of its parts in a different colour
老lǎoprefix used before the surname of
  • 耂old form of 老 · lǎo
  • 匕spoon · bǐ

Memory aidDrawn from an old person with long hair and a walking stick.

How to write 衰老

衰 10 strokes · 老 6 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

衰老 (shuāilǎo) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 衰老 (shuāilǎo). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 衰老

Words with 衰

衰退shuāituì · to decline

Words with 老

老师lǎoshī · teacher老lǎo · old老人lǎorén · old person老虎lǎohǔ · tiger老婆lǎopo · wife (informal)老实lǎoshi · honest老板lǎobǎn · boss老鼠lǎoshǔ · rat老百姓lǎobǎixìng · ordinary people

More words: People, Body & Health

逝世shìshì · to pass away尸体shītǐ · corpse视线shìxiàn · line of sight手势shǒushì · gesture死亡sǐwáng · death四肢sìzhī · limbs苏醒sūxǐng · to regain consciousness瘫痪tānhuàn · paralysed

FAQs

衰老 (shuāilǎo) means “to grow old” or “ageing”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it shuāilǎo: shuāi with a 1st tone, then lǎo with a 3rd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 衰老 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type shuailao with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 衰老 from the suggestions. Typing shuailao into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
衰老 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.