厝 (cuò): to place a coffin in a temporar…

Meanings

1 to place a coffin in a temporary spot pending burial (classical)
2 a house; a dwelling (in southern Fujian dialect)

Characters

厝

cuò

to lay a coffin temporarily; a house (dialect)

Examples

闽南一带把房子叫做厝。

Mǐnnán yídài bǎ fángzi jiàozuò cuò.

In southern Fujian people call a house a 'cuo'.

Tips

history

厝 has almost no use in standard modern Chinese. Its classical sense is 停厝 ('to lay a coffin in temporary storage before burial'); separately it is the everyday word for 'house' in Minnan speech and Fujian place names. The cliff radical 厂 gives a building-by-a-slope image; 昔 supplies the sound.

register

Archaic in the coffin sense; dialectal in the 'house' sense. In standard Mandarin you will mostly meet 厝 in classical text or Fujian and Taiwan place names, not in everyday speech.

Components

radical

厂 chǎng

cliff; slope shelter

厂 pictures a cliff or lean-to shelter and is the indexing radical; in 厝 it suggests a sheltered place, fitting both 'where a coffin rests' and 'a dwelling'.

phonetic

昔 xī

phonetic element

昔 supplies the sound for 厝, with the reading drifting; it is the same phonetic seen in 措 and 错.