Torii
/ˈtoʊ.riː/noun
A traditional Japanese gateway marking the entrance to a Shinto shrine or a sacred space.
Did you know?The spelling 鳥居 combines the characters for “bird” and “to sit,” and one traditional explanation imagines sacred birds perched at the boundary of a Shinto sanctuary.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic
*tori
“Bird; the reconstructed ancestor of Japanese tori”
Old Japanese
Old Japanese
tori
“Bird”
8th Century
Classical Japanese
鳥居
“The written form later read as torii; literally “bird” plus “sitting/being placed””
Medieval Japanese
Japanese
torii
“A shrine gateway or sacred boundary marker”
19th Century
English
torii
“A Japanese Shinto gateway, borrowed through descriptions of Japan”
Modern English
English
torii
“A gateway marking entry into a Shinto sacred area”