庙 (miào) · temple; shrine

Measure Word

一座庙 zuò

Meanings

1 temple; shrine

Examples

HSK 5

山上有一座古老的庙。

Shānshàng yǒu yī zuò gǔlǎo de miào.

There's an ancient temple on the mountain.

HSK 5

每年春节很多人去庙里烧香。

Měinián Chūnjié hěnduō rén qù miào lǐ shāoxiāng.

Every Spring Festival, many people go to the temple to burn incense.

Tips

usage

庙 is the general word for temple. More specific terms: 寺 (sì) for Buddhist temples (少林寺), 观 (guàn) for Taoist temples, 庙 itself often refers to folk religion temples or ancestral halls. The phrase 跑了和尚跑不了庙 (the monk can run but the temple can't) means 'you can't escape forever.'

Components

radical

广 yǎn

shelter; roof (radical)

Upper-left shelter radical - a roof extending out from a back wall. The indexing radical, placing 庙 in the building family with 府, 庭, 廊, 廓. A temple is fundamentally a roofed compound, so the radical does real semantic work here.

semantic

由 yóu

from; cause

Inside 由 - graphic stand-in only. The traditional 廟 had 朝 (cháo, 'court') under the roof, giving 'ancestral court / hall.' When simplified in the 1956 reform, 朝 was replaced by the visually simpler 由; the sound link broke and 由 here is a pure shape placeholder, not a working phonetic.