拼音
- shì (fourth tone, falling)
a room, a chamber; an office or department within an institution
字形拆解
Ideographic description
⿱宀至The sequence reads left to right and describes how the parts are arranged.
- 宀meaning partno entry yetA roof: the word names a space inside a building.
- 至sound partno entry yet至 zhì "to arrive" — an arrow reaching the ground. It gives the sound, and the received reading of the character has always heard its meaning too: the room one arrives at and goes no further.
Mnemonic
A roof 宀 over 至 "to arrive": the inner room, the place you finally reach when you have walked all the way into the house. In modern Chinese it is the formal word — the one on doors and signs — where 房间 is what you say aloud: 教室 a classroom, 办公室 an office, 卧室 a bedroom, 图书室 a reading room.
A memory aid written by HSK Guide editors. It is not an etymology and does not describe the historical origin of the character.