老马识途 lǎo mǎ shí tú

In use

Experience is worth having when nothing looks familiar

Literally

an old horse knows the road

Pinyin

lǎo mǎ shí tú

The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.

Guan Zhong's army, campaigning far north, got lost on the way home in winter. He had the oldest horses unhitched and turned loose, and ordered the column to follow them. The horses found the road.

Source: 《韩非子》Han Feizi, 3rd century BC

The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.

Want the stroke order for one of these? Each character links to its dictionary entry, which animates it.

These share a character with 老马识途 or come from the same classical source, so the characters you have just learned pay off straight away.

What does 老马识途 mean?

老马识途 is pronounced lǎo mǎ shí tú and means experience is worth having when nothing looks familiar. Literally it says "an old horse knows the road" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.

Where does 老马识途 come from?

《韩非子》Han Feizi, 3rd century BC. Guan Zhong's army, campaigning far north, got lost on the way home in winter. He had the oldest horses unhitched and turned loose, and ordered the column to follow them. The horses found the road.

How do you pronounce 老马识途?

lǎo mǎ shí tú. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.

What do the characters in 老马识途 mean?

老 (lǎo) Old (boss - experienced - tough - always), 马 (mǎ) Horse, 识 (shí) Know (knowledge - recognize - write a footnote), 途 (tú) Way (route - road). These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.

Is 老马识途 still used today?

Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the advanced band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.