pailoo

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An elaborate gateway-like erection usually of massive hewn stone set up in China on the roadside near a city or in some public place in a city or town, by the local inhabitants (with imperial sanction) in honor of some one distinguished for filial piety or for some meritorious act, as when a widow commits suicide rather than remarry. A pailoo consists of four massive squared pillars (buttressed with conventional Chinese lions, the two in the center being taller than those at the side and supporting two horizontal cross-beams instead of one (as at the side), and covered with incised inscriptions eulogistic of the honored one and his or her virtues. The table is placed against the upper beam of the main division.