Word.ws English Dictionary

naos

/ˈneɪ.ɒs/

naos noun: the inner part of an ancient Greek temple, containing a statue of the temple's deity and surrounded by a colonnaded portico; (by extension) the Roman cella, which it later gave rise to. Also the plural of nao.

Noun

naos (plural naoses or naosoi or naoi)

  1. (historical) The inner part of an ancient Greek temple, containing a statue of the temple's deity and surrounded by a colonnaded portico; (by extension) the Roman cella, which it later gave rise to.
    • The simplest form of the rectangular temple was that in which the two side walls were carried out from the naos to form the porch at one or both extremities of the building.1846, Henry Ellis, The Elgin and Phigaleian marbles of the classical ages, in the British museum
    • The uncertainty that exists, from the condition of the ruins, as to the height originally assigned by the architect to the interior of the naos and of the opisthodomus,^([sic – meaning opisthodomos]) hampers our investigation of the considerations by which he decided the distribution of the plan.1868, William Watkiss Lloyd, On the General Theory of Proportion in Architectural Design, John Weale, page 18

Proper noun capitalized: Naos

Naos

  1. Zeta Puppis, a star in the constellation of Puppis.

Also used as

naos is also the plural of nao.

Forms of naos

pluralnaoses
pluralnaosoi
pluralnaoi

Origin of naos

From Ancient Greek ναός (naós, “inner part of the temple”).

Words formed from naos

Words that rhyme with naos

Questions about naos

What does naos mean?
Naos means the inner part of an ancient Greek temple, containing a statue of the temple's deity and surrounded by a colonnaded portico; (by extension) the Roman cella, which it later gave rise to.
What part of speech is naos?
Naos can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce naos?
Naos is pronounced /ˈneɪ.ɒs/.
What is the plural of naos?
The plural of naos is naoses.

Words near naos in the dictionary

  1. Naomily
  2. Naophangba
  3. naophorous
  4. Naorem
  5. Naoroibam
  6. naos
  7. naoses
  8. naosoi
  9. Naothingkhong
  10. Naousa
  11. Naoussa

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: naos (page history and authors); Naos (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “naos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/naos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.