老先生

lǎoxiānshēng

old gentleman; venerable sir

Wiktionary

Examples

“一只猫？”老先生问。

"A cat?" asked the old man.

Source: Tatoeba

这位老先生立了他的遗嘱。

The old man made out his will.

Source: Tatoeba

Entry Composition

1 老 lǎo
  1. prefix used before the surname of a person or a numeral indicating the order of birth of the children in a family or to indicate affection or familiarity
  2. old (of people)
  3. venerable (person)
  4. experienced
  5. of long standing
  6. always
  7. all the time
  8. of the past
  9. very
  10. outdated
  11. (of meat etc) tough
=2 先生 xiānsheng
  1. teacher
  2. gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.)
  3. husband
  4. (dialect) doctor

classifier: 位
=2 先生 xiānshēng
  1. (dialectal) traditional Chinese medicine physician
  2. (literal, Classical) one who was born earlier
  3. (literary) Taoist priest
  4. (literary) ancestor
  5. (literary) father and elder brother
  6. An honorific for adults, usually conferred on males: mister; sir; gentleman
  7. Taoist priest
  8. ancestor
  9. father and elder brother
  10. husband
  11. one who was born earlier
  12. traditional Chinese medicine physician