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Definition of "pagoda" [pa•go•da]

  • A religious building of the Far East, especially a multistory Buddhist tower, erected as a memorial or shrine. (noun)
  • A stupa. (noun)
  • A structure, such as a garden pavilion, built in imitation of a multistory Buddhist tower. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "pagoda" in a sentence
  • ""I think I shall put into the tablecloth a certain pagoda I remember.""
  • "The four-storey pagoda, which is almost four feet high and one-and-a-half feet wide, is thought by archaeologists to be one of the 84,000 pagodas commissioned by Ashoka the Great in the second century BC to house the remains of the Buddha."
  • "Although the age and source of the Buddhas is unknown, four additional silver and bronze statues were also found beneath the pagoda, which is thought to be at least 200 years old, leading archaeologists to suspect that the diminutive Buddhas themselves are older."