Etymology

Laozi

Lao·zi
L1A1O1Z10I1

Today it means: An honorific title for the legendary Taoist philosopher Li Er, who supposedly lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BC and (Chinese mythology) has subsequently been worshipped as a Taoist god. Full definition →

Chinese 老子
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Chinese · derived from老子“the Old One, the Venerable One”
  2. English todayLaozi

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the standard Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 老子 (“the Old One, the Venerable One”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.