lầu

Non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 樓 (SV: lâu).

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ləw˨˩]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ləw˦˩]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ləw˨˩]

lầu

1. (history) a multistory building
   • 8th century, Li Bai, "Tại lầu Hoàng Hạc tống tiễn Mạnh Hạo Nhiên đi Quảng Lăng (At the Yellow Crane Tower, I saw Meng Haoran off to Guangling)", Vietnamese translation by Khương Hữu Dụng

     Hoàng Hạc lầu xưa bạn cũ rời; Dương Châu hoa khói tháng ba xuôi.

     My old friend has bidden me farewell (west) of the Yellow Crane Tower; Amidst the third month's flower-like mist, he'll go downstream to Yangzhou

   • 8th century, Cui Hao, "Lầu Hoàng Hạc (Yellow Crane Tower)", Vietnamese translations by Tản Đà (1937) & Khương Hữu Dụng (1997)

     Hạc vàng ai cưỡi đi đâu? Mà đây Hoàng Hạc riêng lầu còn trơ. / Ai cưỡi hạc vàng đi mất hút? Trơ lầu Hoàng Hạc chốn này thôi.

     Someone (of yore), riding the yellow crane, flew away; Here is the Yellow Crane Tower left empty.

2. (architecture, chiefly Southern Vietnam) a floor (except the ground floor)

   lầu 1 ― the 1st/2nd floor (1 level above the ground story)

   nhà lầu ― a multistory house

   nhảy lầu tự tử ― to jump off a high floor to kill oneself

In southern Vietnamese, the ground floor is called trệt and each floor above it is a lầu numbered from lầu 1. By contrast, in northern and central Vietnamese, floors are called tầng, the ground floor is numbered as tầng 1, and tầng 0 technically refers to a crawl space.

• (a floor (except the ground floor)): tầng (southern Vietnam)

• tầng