室 (shì): room; chamber

Meanings

1 room; chamber
2 office (in compound words)

Characters

室

shì

room; chamber

Examples

HSK 1

教室里有很多学生。

Jiàoshì lǐ yǒu hěnduō xuéshēng.

There are many students in the classroom.

HSK 2

这是办公室。

Zhè shì bàngōngshì.

This is the office.

HSK 3

请到会议室来。

Qǐng dào huìyìshì lái.

Please come to the meeting room.

Tips

usage

室 is rarely used alone - it's typically a suffix: 教室 (classroom), 卧室 (bedroom), 办公室 (office), 实验室 (lab), 浴室 (bathroom).

grammar

To say 'a room,' use 房间, not 室 by itself. 室 is a bound morpheme used in compounds.

Components

radical

宀 mián

roof; house

Top roof radical - the indexing radical. Marks 室 as a kind of building or enclosed space. Common across the dwelling family: 家 (home), 宿 (lodge), 安 (peace, rest), 守 (guard a place), 客 (guest).

phonetic

至 zhì

to arrive

Bottom 至 supplies the sound (zhì → shì, mild drift but they share an ancient palatal series) and contributes 'arrival' semantics: a room is where one arrives and rests. Roof + arrive = 'the place reached and dwelt in'. Same phonetic in 致 (extend), 侄 (nephew).