1.NounA variant posthumous name used in China and occasionally other East Asian cultures for ritual worship at a dynasty's ancestral temple."The posthumous names of early Chinese rulers were often variations of a few words like "the martial one" 武 (wǔ), "the literary one" 文, and "the filial one" 孝 (xiào), but by the Tang they had become so long that people began using rulers' temple names or era names instead."