Character 庵 — hut, hermitage

庵 means a small retreat, hut, hermitage, or small temple.

It starts as a round or thatched hut, a plain shelter. That shelter sense then stretches to monks' quarters, nunneries, small temple buildings, and a writer's quiet study.

Copy it from the palette above when you need the exact form for a name or term.

Why does 庵 appear in tea-house names?

It makes a tea room sound like a secluded retreat.

In the sixteenth century, Japanese wabi-cha reshaped the tea house around small, rustic rooms meant to evoke mountain hermit cottages. The suffix -an (庵) became part of many tea-house names, marking an intentional retreat rather than an ordinary room.

So a name ending in -an borrows that rustic, cultivated quiet, not extra floor space.

Does 庵 mean the same thing in Chinese and Japanese?

No; the core idea travels, but the usual setting shifts.

In Chinese, 庵 is used for a small thatched building, a nunnery, or a small temple. In Japanese, iori foregrounds a recluse's hut or retreat, while an appears in monks' quarters, restaurant names, pen names, and tea-house names.

The character pairs 广 with the sound element 奄. 菴 is a variant spelling, while Japanese records also use 廬 for the older iori vocabulary.