塔

See also 墖

Translingual

Han character

塔 (radical 32 土+10, 13 strokes, cangjie input 土廿人口 (GTOR), four-corner 4416₁)

1. tower, spire, tall building

References

• KangXi: page 235, character 14
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 5332
• Dae Jaweon: page 473, character 7
• Hanyu Da Zidian: volume 1, page 460, character 6
• Unihan data for U+5854

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Cantonese

Hanzi

塔 (Yale taap3)

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Japanese

Wikipedia ^ja

Wikipedia

Kanji

塔 (common “Jōyō” kanji, shinjitai kanji, kyūjitai form 墖)

1. pagoda, tower, steeple

Readings

• On: とう (tō)
• Kun: (rare) てら (tera), (rare) おか (oka), あららぎ (araragi)

Compounds

Compounds

五輪の石塔 (ごりんのせきとう, gorin no sekitō), 五輪の塔 (ごりんのとう, gorin no tō): a five-ring or five-level stone stupa 仏塔 (ぶっとう, buttō): a Buddhist reliquary stupa; a Buddhist temple pagoda or stupa 五重塔, 五重の塔 (ごじゅうのとう, gojū no tō): a five-storey pagoda 石塔 (せきとう, sekitō): a stone pagoda or stupa; a Buddhist tombstone 三重塔, 三重の塔 (さんじゅうのとう, sanjū no tō): a three-storey pagoda 塔屋 (とうや, tōya): a penthouse; a structure on top of a building, possibly the top of the elevator shaft, the stairs, ventilation equipment, or a water tower 塔花 (とうばな, tōbana): genus Clinopodium, including wild mints and basils; slender wild basil (Clinopodium gracile)

塔型クレーン (とうがたクレーン, tōgata kurēn): a tower crane 塔克拉瑪干砂漠 (たくらまかんさばく, Takuramakan Sabaku): the Taklamakan Desert 塔主, 塔司 (たっす, tassu): job title for the caretaker of a Buddhist cemetery 塔頭, 塔中 (たっちゅう, tatchū): in Zen Buddhism, the location of a stupa for a past master or founder; the title of the monk in charge of that stupa; a small chapel within a larger temple 塔頭 (たっちょう, tatchō): an old grave; a graveyard, a cemetery 塔婆 (とうば, tōba): a stupa: short for 卒塔婆 (sotōba) 塔廟 (とうびょう, tōbyō): a Buddhist reliquary stupa 塔望遠鏡 (とうぼうえんきょう, tōbōenkyō): a tower telescope, a tower observatory 塔里木 (タリム, Tarimu): the Tarim Basin

Etymology 1

塔: a pagoda

From Sinitic 塔.

tapu > taɸu > *tawu > tau > tɔː > to̞ː

An abbreviation for 卒塔婆 (sotoba, sotōba), a transliteration of Sanskrit स्तूप (stūpa, “heap”) .

Pronunciation

• On'yomi
• IPA: /to.o/, [to̞ː]

Noun

塔 (hiragana とう, romaji tō, historical hiragana たふ)

1. (in general) a tower
2. (Buddhist) a pagoda, a stupa
3. (Christian) a steeple, spire
4. (of a castle or fortification) a turret

Derived terms

Derived terms

塔の層 (とうのこし, tō no koshi): the stacked floors of a pagoda 塔ノ沢温泉 (とうのさわおんせん, Tō no Sawa Onsen): an onsen (hot spring) in Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture

Idioms

• 塔は下から組め (とうはしたからくめ, tō wa shita kara kume): build a tower from the ground up → no good building without a good foundation

Suffix

塔 (hiragana とう, romaji -tō)

1. (in general) a tower
2. (Buddhist) a pagoda, a stupa
3. (Christian) a steeple, spire
4. (of a castle or fortification) a turret

Etymology 2

First appears in the Engishiki compilation of laws created in the early 900s, spelled phonetically in kanji as 阿良良伎 (araragi). Used as a euphemism for 塔 (tafu at the time), as that word's Buddhist connotations were viewed as taboo in contexts having to do with the religious center of Itsuki no Miya (斎宮, also known as Saikū).

In non-euphemistic uses, the word araragi refers to either the wild onion (more often known as ノビル (nobiru)) or the Japanese yew tree Taxus cuspidata (more often known as イチイ (ichii)), derived as the stem noun form of the verb 荒らぐ (araragu, “to become rough, wild, violent”), or as a compound from 粗 (arara, “roughly, wildly”) + 木 (ki, “tree”), with the ki changing to gi due to rendaku (連濁).

Pronunciation

• Kun'yomi
• IPA: /a.ra.ra.ɡi/, [äɽäɽägi], [äɽäɽäŋi]

Noun

塔 (hiragana あららぎ, romaji araragi)

1. a tower
2. (tarot) the tower, the sixteenth trump or major arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks
3. abbreviation for 塔舞 (Araragimai), the title of a piece of bugaku Japanese court dance

Coordinate terms

• タロット (tarotto): The tarot.

Derived terms

• 塔舞 (あららぎまい, Araragimai): the title of a piece of bugaku Japanese court dance

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Korean

Hanja

塔 (hangeul 탑, revised tap, McCune-Reischauer t'ap)

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Mandarin

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Hanzi

塔 (pinyin tǎ (ta3), Wade-Giles t'a³)

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Middle Chinese

Han character

塔 (tɑp)

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Vietnamese

Han character

塔 (tháp, thạp, thóp)