How to Write 庐 (lú) — Meaning “hut; cottage”

Imagine a small hut (广) with a single door (户) — just enough space for one person to live simply. The combination of a roof over a door can remind you that 庐 means a basic shelter or cottage.

The 户 part inside 庐 is easy to confuse with 尸 (corpse). Remember that 户 has a dot on top, while 尸 does not. Also, the stroke order is: 广 first (dot, horizontal, left-falling), then 户 (dot, horizontal fold, horizontal, left-falling) — total 7 strokes.

平 (píng) means 'flat' or 'level' and has the radical 干, not 广 — it looks completely different. 庀 (pǐ) shares the radical 广 but means 'to prepare' or 'to set up', and its lower part is 匕 (spoon), not 户. So 庐 is unique with its 'door' component and the meaning of a hut.

庐 appears in place names like 庐山 (Mount Lu, a famous scenic mountain in Jiangxi) and in literary terms such as 草庐 (thatched cottage) — often referring to a humble home of a scholar. It is not common in daily conversation, but you may encounter it in poetry or historical texts.

Common words containing 庐 include: 庐山 (lú shān) — Mount Lu; 草庐 (cǎo lú) — Thatched cottage; humble hut.; 庐舍 (lú shě) — cottage; hut.