Taxonomy of meanings for 廟:　　

Additional information about 廟

說文解字: 【廟】，尊先祖皃也。从广、朝聲。 【睂召切】 【庿】，古文。

Criteria
• TEMPLE
  

  1. The most common word for an ancestral temple in ancient China was miào 廟, and this word refers to the royal ancestral temple as well as to the ancestral temples of feudal lords and senior officials and even ordinary shì 士 "gentlemen, freemen". The Son of Heaven had seven of these, feudal lords had five, dàfū 大夫 had three and ordinary freemen had one. Ordinary people sacrificed in the qǐn 寢 "back room (also used as bedroom)" where the altar would traditionally occupy the north-western corner.

  2. Zōng 宗 "founding ancestor of a clan" is used by synecdoche to refer to the permanent ancestral temple where he is venerated together with his deceased successors. The word has an archaic flavour.

  3. Tiāo 祧 is a technical term for a shrine, sometimes specifically a non-permanent shrine for a distant ancestor, a shrine that could be removed and replaced by a mere altar. In the common combination zōng tiā1o 宗祧 it would appear that tiāo 祧 refers to a shrine within the larger temple complex.

  4. Cí 祠 referred originally to a small temple built near a grave where the deceased were venerated, but the term came to be used more generally to refer to a private family temple where both ancesters and other divinities of all kinds were venerated. These establishments could be very large in large clans, and very small in small clans.

  5. The case of qǐn 寢 is historically very complex. Four uses of the word must be distinguished. A. Qǐn 寢 referred in Spring and Autumn times to a part of the miào 廟 attached to it at as a back-room qǐn 寢 which was a luxuriously appointed bedroom for the use of the ancestors, where these could sleep and where they were also served as if alive (although these concrete practices are first mentioned in Han sources). B. In Warring States times the qǐn 寢 was moved to the vicinity of royal tombs to serve as a place of worship. See TOMB. C. Also, the term referred to the back room behind the formal main hall in which the spirits were venerated (in private homes in the north-western corner).

• PERSONAL NAME
  

  1. The general word for a name for a person of any kind is míng 名. Míng 名 refers specifically to the name given to a person at the age of 3 months, and this name is informally chosen and often not chosen with great care. There are fixed rules for exactly when the mí2ng 名 of a person is to be used and when one must use the zì 字. (LIJI)

  2. Xìng 姓 refers to the general name of the clan defined by one's male lineage.

  3. Originally, it is said, there were only 25 surnames xìng 姓 established by the Son of Heaven. With time, the members of one of the original xìng 姓 gave different names shì 氏 to their sub-lineages so that shì 氏 came to refer to sub-lineages under a given xìng 姓. From late Warring States times onwards, xìng 姓 and shì 氏 came to be confused.

  4. Zì 字 refers to the courtesy name given to a person at the age of 20 for boys, and 15 for girls, and the purpose of this was to give the person an appellation that would distinguish her or him from the other members of the family and give him an identity. The zì 字 or a person was therefore something that was taken great care with.

  5. Hào 號 refers to an informal style or given name which is first given to a person as an adult for various social purposes. Among the typical hào 號 there came to be bié hào 別號, shǐ hào 諡號, miào hào 廟號 "temple name", post-Buddhist zūn hào 尊號, huī hào 徽號 and so on. The purpose of hào 號 was to express the way of thinking and the special character of a person.

• NATION
  

  1. The current standard word for the nation as represented by the leading families, and opposed to the state as mere territory and inhabitants, is guó jiā 國家.

  2. Shè jì 社稷 refers to the altars of the land and grain as symbols of the nation.

  3. Bāng guó 邦國 is an ancient general territorially focussed designation for a nation which continues in nostalgic use.

  4. Zōng miào 宗廟 "ancestral temples" is the very common metonymic designation for the nation as a primarily ritual and perhaps even religious entity, and it is important that the symbolic reference to the buildings often remains relevant to the abstract meaning of the term.

Word relations
• Assoc: (TEMPLE)宗/TEMPLE Zōng 宗 "founding ancestor of a clan" is used by synecdoche to refer to the permanent ancestral temple where he is venerated together with his deceased successors. The word has an archaic flavour. 6 Attributions
• Assoc: (TEMPLE)祧/TEMPLE Tiāo 祧 is a technical term for a shrine, sometimes specifically a non-permanent shrine for a distant ancestor, a shrine that could be removed and replaced by a mere altar. In the common combination zōng tiā1o 宗祧 it would appear that tiāo 祧 refers to a shrine within the larger temple complex.