Cuo, the house
The Chaoshan word for a house: a new house is sin cuo, going home is turning back to the cuo.
Pronunciation cuò｜Houses and settlement｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
Cuo is a house, and the dialect keeps the old character for it. To build is to raise a cuo, a new house is a sin cuo, to go home is to turn back to the cuo, and inside the cuo means at home. One word holds up a whole set of everyday phrases.
By plan there are several kinds: the four-point gold, the tiger coming down the hill, the four horses drawing a carriage. By material, walls may be rammed earth, cut stone or brick.
How it is used
Our cuo means our house; your cuo means yours; where is your cuo is how you ask where someone lives. In speech the one word means the building and the household both.
Words easily confused
Cuo is the general word for a dwelling; a ci tang is where a lineage sacrifices to its ancestors; a lao ye gong is a temple to a god. All three have roofs, and they are not the same kind of thing.
Read next: Chaoshan speech and standard Chinese, side by side.
Same group: cuo bian, the neighbours, four-point gold, ancestral hall.
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Last revised: 3 November 2026