屋 (wū): (bound form) house, (bound form) room

屋 (wū) is a Chinese character meaning “(bound form) house.” Classified as HSK Level 3 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of 尸 (structural) and 至 (structural). It ranks #863 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, 屋 to stop 至 under a roof 尸 (variant of 厂). Its radical form 尸 (corpse) appears in many related characters such as 层 (céng, to pile on top of one another), 尽 (jǐn, to the greatest extent), 展 (zhǎn, to spread out).

Spoken pronunciation

Definitions

  1. (bound form) house
  2. (bound form) room

Etymology & Origin

屋

ideographicTo stop 至 under a roof 尸 (variant of 厂)

Decomposition: ⿸尸至 (layout: surround-from-upper-left)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Practice writing 屋 with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with 屋

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
屋子nounwū zihouse3
房屋nounfáng wūhouse5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
屋顶nounwū dǐngroof
小屋nounxiǎo wūcabin
屋檐nounwū yáneaves
咖啡屋nounkā fēi wūcoffee house
茅屋nounmáo wūthatched cottage
同屋nountóng wūroommate
名古屋proper-nounmíng gǔ wūNagoya, city in Japan
公屋noungōng wū(HK) public housing estate
屋脊nounwū jǐroof ridge
草屋nouncǎo wūthatched hut
屋面nounwū miànroof
黄金屋huáng jīn wūlit. house made of gold
发屋nounfà wūbarbershop
华屋huá wūmagnificent residence
活动房屋huó dòng fáng wūprefabricated building
60
Total compounds
20
As first character
55
As last character
25
As middle character

屋 appears in 60 compound words: 20 as the first character, 55 as the last, and 25 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with 屋 in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

敷fū
0.5896,012 co-occurrences
房fáng
0.58754,765 co-occurrences
顶dǐng
0.51811,494 co-occurrences
古gǔ
0.50929,276 co-occurrences
檐yán
0.4851,447 co-occurrences
塌tā
0.4421,969 co-occurrences
租zū
0.4356,014 co-occurrences
粕pò
0.426158 co-occurrences
脊jǐ
0.4251,573 co-occurrences
住zhù
0.4259,612 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (7)

华屋丘墟huá wū qiū xūHSK 7+

magnificent building reduced to a mound of rubble (idiom); fig. all one's plans in ruins

phrase
活动房屋huó dòng fáng wūHSK 3+

prefabricated building; prefab; mobile home

phrase
金屋藏娇jīnwūcángjiāoHSK 7+

to take a concubine or wife; to keep a mistress tucked away in a luxurious house or apartment

phrase
世界屋脊shìjiè wūjǐHSK 7+

the Roof of the World

土阶茅屋tǔ jiē máo wūHSK 7+

lit. earthen steps and a small cottage; frugal living conditions (idiom)

phrase
仰屋兴叹yǎng wū xīng tànHSK 7+

to stare at the ceiling in despair; to find no way out; nothing you can do about it

phrase

Showing 6 of 7 idioms containing 屋.

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

屋字在不同的语境中有不同的用法。

wū zì zài bù tóng de yǔ jìng zhōng yǒu bù tóng de yòng fǎ .

The character "屋" has different usages in different contexts.

99 健康网Feb 2026

为什么在屋内也会晒黑?这些防晒盲区要注意

wéi shén má zài wū nèi yě huì shài hēi ? zhè xiē fáng shài máng qū yāo zhù yì

Why do you tan in the house too? Pay attention to these sunscreen blind spots

Hk01.comFeb 2026

名古屋亚运2026|门票3.12起海外发售 焦...

míng gǔ wū yà yùn 2 0 2 6 mén piào 3 . 1 2 qǐ hǎi wài fā shòu jiāo . . .

Nagoya Asian Games 2026|Tickets will be sold overseas from 3.12 Jiao...

Hk01.comFeb 2026

公屋阿婆走廊水管玩吊单杠!住户恐压爆制止遭骂...

gōng wū ā pó zǒu láng shuǐ guǎn wán diào dān gàng ! zhù hù kǒng yā bào zhì zhǐ zāo mà . . .

Playing with the horizontal bar in the public housing grandmother's corridor water pipe! Residents are afraid of being scolded for being scolded...

Yahoo FinanceFeb 2026

港置周末10大屋苑录得约2宗成交按周下跌约50%

gǎng zhì zhōu mò 1 0 dà wū 苑 lù dé yuē 2 zōng chéng jiāo àn zhōu xià diē yuē 5 0

Hong Kong Property's top 10 housing estates recorded about 2 transactions over the weekend, down about 50% week-on-week

東森新聞Feb 2026

独家/大年初二邻嫌吵狂砸门找碴 屋主:根本不在

dú jiā dà nián chū èr lín xián chǎo kuáng zá mén zhǎo 碴 wū zhǔ : gēn běn bù zài

Exclusive/On the second day of the Lunar New Year, the neighbor was noisy and smashed the door to find ballast Homeowner: Not at all

Tatoeba

若有大地震,房屋会倒塌呀!

Ruò yǒu dàdì zhèn, fángwū huì dǎotā ya!

If there's a big earthquake, the house could really collapse!

Tatoeba

那幢绿色屋顶的建筑是什么?

Nà zhuàng lǜsè wūdǐng de jiànzhù shì shénme?

What is that building with the green roof?

Tatoeba

许多房屋被洪水冲走了。

Xǔduō fángwū bèi hóngshuǐ chōngzǒu le.

A lot of houses were washed away by the flood.

Tatoeba

汤姆说他打扫屋子打扫了一天。

Tāngmǔ shuō tā dǎsǎo wūzi dǎsǎo le yī tiān.

Tom said that he had been cleaning the house all day.

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced wū

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 屋 (wū) mean in Chinese?
屋 (wū) primarily means "(bound form) house." It is classified as HSK Level 3, making it a beginner-level character. It ranks #863 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 屋 have?
屋 is written with 9 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 屋?
The radical associated with 屋 is 尸 (corpse). This radical appears in many characters related to corpse.
What are the components of 屋?
屋 is composed of: 尸 (structural), 至 (structural). Its IDS decomposition is ⿸尸至 with a surround-from-upper-left layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 屋?
Common words with 屋 include: 屋子 (wū zi, "house"); 屋顶 (wū dǐng, "roof"); 小屋 (xiǎo wū, "cabin"); 房屋 (fáng wū, "house"); 屋檐 (wū yán, "eaves"). There are over 60 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 屋 (wū)?
Several characters share the pronunciation wū: 物 ((bound form) thing), 务 (affair), 五 (five), 武 (martial), and 6 more. Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 屋 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 屋 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing 屋 with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear spoken pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.