About
The character 耄 is a phono-semantic compound describing an advanced stage of human life. Its upper component is the radical 老, which places the character within the semantic field of old age and the passage of time. The lower component is 毛 (hair), which provides the pronunciation "mao". Historically, classical texts defined this character to specifically denote a person of great age, typically in their eighties or nineties. It is used almost exclusively in formal or literary contexts to refer to this advanced age, most commonly in the compound 耄耋 (màodié), which means octogenarian or nonagenarian.