屋 (wū): house; room

Meanings

1 house; room
2 building

Characters

屋

wū

house; room; roof

Examples

屋子里很暖和。

Wūzi lǐ hěn nuǎnhuo.

It's very warm in the room.

房屋出租。

Fángwū chūzū.

House for rent.

Tips

usage

屋 appears in: 屋子 (room), 房屋 (house/building), 屋顶 (roof). Compare with 房 (house/room) — 屋 emphasizes the physical structure.

Components

radical

尸 shī

corpse; body (here roof/dwelling)

Top-left wrapper is the 尸 radical, originally a seated body but in dwelling characters acting as a roof or shelter. The same component sits over 居 to dwell, 屁 fart, 层 floor, and 尾 tail. Here it caps 至 to mark the place where a person settles down.

semantic

至 zhì

to arrive; to reach

Underneath sits 至 'to arrive' — a pictograph of an arrow striking the ground. Combined with the shelter on top, the whole character means 'where one arrives and stops' — a house, a room, the place you finally settle. The semantic stack makes 屋 transparent: arrival under a roof.