liáo
noun #50,072

Meanings

  1. 1 a small hut; a dormitory room (literary)
  2. 2 an official; colleague (classical)

Examples

晚课之后僧人各自回到僧寮
Wǎnkè zhīhòu, sēngrén gèzì huídào sēngliáo.
The monks each return to their own quarters after the evening lesson.

Tips

history
rarely stands alone in modern Chinese; it survives in 茅寮 (a thatched hut), monastery terms like 僧寮, and the country name 寮国 (Laos, in Taiwan usage). It joins the roof radical with the phonetic .
register
Literary and regional; appears in set compounds and old texts, and as 寮国 in Taiwan, where the mainland writes 老挝.

Components

radical
mián
roof; building
The roof radical on top marks this as a kind of dwelling — a small hut or a room.
phonetic
liáo
a torch fire (phonetic element)
Supplies the sound, matching the liáo reading. The same phonetic appears in and ; it carries no meaning here.

Stroke Order

liáo