寺

Alternative forms

 * Note that in Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese scripts, the top half of the character is 土 (instead of 士 as seen in Traditional Chinese), which is also the historical form found in the Kangxi Dictionary.

Glyph origin
– to grasp, to hold. Phonetic 𡳿 (之) became or  in the clerical script from the late Western Han to the Eastern Han, and semantic  become  in Small Seal Script. The derivative refers to the original word.

The character was often used in the place of a more specialized form. For example, in the (see table above) it clearly stood for.

Definitions

 * 1)  government court; office
 * 2)  temple; monastery
 * 3) place of worship; shrine
 * 1) place of worship; shrine
 * 1) place of worship; shrine
 * 1) place of worship; shrine
 * 1) place of worship; shrine

Usage notes
Not used for places of worship of Taoism and Chinese folk religion.

Definitions

 * 1)  internal court official, especially a eunuch

Kanji

 * 1)  temple

Compounds

 * : Tanjō-ji, Tanjō Temple: any of various Buddhist temples or places in Japan
 * : the grounds of a temple
 * : the official stamp or seal of a Buddhist temple
 * : a Buddhist temple
 * : temples and shrines

Etymology 1
From. Appears in the ' of 720, and in the ', completed some time after 759.

There are various theories regarding the ultimate derivation.
 * Some sources derive Japanese tera from an ancestor of Middle  (likely Baekje). This is from earlier  and is the nativised reading of  below, deriving in turn from 🇨🇬, shortened from , borrowed from 🇨🇬, from , from , from.
 * Other sources describe Japanese tera as cognate with modern 🇨🇬, appearing as a component in terms such as ,.
 * Another derivation is given as  in reference to the monks.

Considering the phonetic development in Korean, the avenues for transmission of Buddhist terms to Japan, and the consistent sense of the Japanese term throughout recorded history, the now-obsolete 🇨🇬 may be a more likely source than 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1)  a temple

Etymology 2
From.

Pronunciation

 * The pitch accent depends on the suffixed term.

Suffix

 * 1)  a temple

Han character

 * 1) Buddhist monastery