Several parts combine into one character.

A character with a fascinating cross-cultural history. Oracle bone 寺 originally pictured a hand (寸) holding a tool — meaning "government office / official building" in ancient China. The semantic shift is one of the most documented in Chinese etymology: when Buddhism arrived in China during the Han Dynasty (1st century CE), the foreign monks were initially housed in government offices (寺). Over time, the housing became permanent and 寺 came to mean "Buddhist temple". One character preserves two layers of history: ancient Chinese administration AND the entry of Buddhism into East Asia.

Identical across 繁體 / 新字体 / 简体.

In modern usage, 寺 means specifically "Buddhist temple" — distinguished from 神社 (jinja, Shinto shrine) in Japan, 庙 (miào, Daoist or folk temple) in China.

Mandarin: sì, falling 4th tone. 寺 (sì), 寺庙 (sìmiào, temple), 少林寺 (Shàolínsì, Shaolin Temple — the legendary martial arts monastery), 法门寺 (Fǎménsì), 大慈恩寺 (Dàcí'ēnsì). Most major Chinese Buddhist temples end in 寺.

Japanese: on-reading ジ (ji) — 寺院 (jiin, Buddhist temple — formal). Kun-reading てら (tera) is the everyday word — 寺 (tera, temple), お寺 (otera, polite "temple"), 寺町 (Teramachi, "Temple Town" — common urban district name in Japanese cities). Famous Japanese temples almost universally end in 寺 — 清水寺 (Kiyomizu-dera, Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto), 金閣寺 (Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion), 龍安寺 (Ryōan-ji, the rock garden temple). Note the temple-name reading varies: ~でら (kun-reading) for some, ~じ (on-reading) for others — there is no single rule, you memorize each temple individually.

The character is also a productive radical — 時 (time, with 日 added) and 詩 (poetry, with 言 added) both build on 寺 phonetically.

Memory aid: an old government office that became a Buddhist temple — two civilizations layered in one character.