temple name
nounEtymology Calque of Chinese 廟號 /庙号 (miàohào). The temple (廟 /庙 (miào)) refers to the grand temples (太廟 /太庙 (tàimiào)) built by each dynasty for ancestor worship where each deceased monarch's temple name was recorded on their ancestral tablet in the grand temple.
1
Historical A variant posthumous name used in China and occasionally other East Asian cultures for ritual worship at a dynasty's ancestral temple.
- The posthumous names of early Chinese rulers were often variations of a few words like "the martial one" 武 (wǔ), "the literary one" 文, and "the filial one" 孝 (xiào), but by the Tang they had become so long that people began using rulers' temple names or era names instead.