Word
家屋
Meaning in Englishhouse, building
Animated kanji stroke order
Word context
What it means
What does 家屋 mean? It denotes a house or dwelling, especially a residential building, used in formal or historical contexts to refer to a residence as a structure.
Main meanings
- Primary meaning: a house or dwelling, a structure used for living in.
- Formal or historical usage: frequently found in legal, architectural, or historical texts to designate residential buildings as a category.
- Broader sense: can refer to any building used for housing, not necessarily a single family home.
How to use it
Used mainly in formal, architectural, legal, or historical contexts to refer to a dwelling as a category; not common in casual speech. In housing policy documents, architectural surveys, census definitions, and literary descriptions of traditional towns, it appears as a generic term for a residence.
Variants and close terms
- 住宅 (じゅうたく) — jūtaku, residence, housing
- 住居 (じゅうきょ) — jūkyō, dwelling, residence
- 家 (いえ) — ie, home
- 建物 (たてもの) — tatemono, building
Composition
- 家 = house, home; a basic domestic unit representing the idea of a dwelling.
- 屋 = roof, building; adds the sense of a structure that contains people under a roof.
- When combined, they yield a general term for a dwelling or residence.
Etymology
etimologia kaoku is formed from the on'yomi readings of 家 and 屋, combining to a Sino-Japanese compound; the pronunciation follows standard Japanese phonology when these characters appear together.
Word class
Noun (名詞)