Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

temple of heaven

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.21 in modern English

Syllables: tem-ple of heav-en
IPA

27

Scrabble Score

14

Letters

3

Syllables

11

Unique Chars

Meaning

name

A religious complex in southeastern Beijing, formerly important to Chinese imperial rituals; the present-day park surrounding and preserving the site.

name

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, the largest building in the complex, commonly confused as its focus.

Example Sentences

"Jonah Byrde: Y'know, in third grade, we learned about the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. There are like 600 acres and on the grounds there's this building called the Hall for Prayer for Good Harvests. It's circled by this thing called the Echo Wall. Wendy Byrde: Ok, ok. Jonah Byrde: You can go there and even when people are whispering you just hear the same things repeated over and over and over. Wendy Byrde: Ok, enough. You wanna be a smartass? You want to hate me? Fine."

Etymology

Calque of Chinese 天壇 /天坛 (Tiāntán, literally “Altar of Heaven”).

Inflected Forms

the Temple of Heaven (canonical)

Frequently Paired Words

Temple of the Sun Temple of the Moon Temple of the Earth

Synonyms

Altar of Heaven Tiantan Tien-tan T'ien-t'an Tian Tan

Questions

What does temple of heaven mean?: A religious complex in southeastern Beijing, formerly important to Chinese imperial rituals; the present-day park surrounding and preserving the site.
Where does temple of heaven come from?: Calque of Chinese 天壇 /天坛 (Tiāntán, literally “Altar of Heaven”).

How to pronounce temple of heaven

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “temple of heaven”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “temple of heaven”.
Repeat and practice — Say “temple of heaven” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.