naos

Naos, from the Greek word naós, means temple or sacred inner chamber. It denotes the principal enclosed space of a temple where the cult statue was housed. In classical temple architecture, the naos is the interior cella, often surrounded by a colonnade and accessed via a porch called the pronaos; some temples also featured an opisthodomos at the rear. The term is commonly used in archaeological and architectural descriptions to distinguish the inner sanctuary from other temple parts.

In Greek architectural terminology, the naos is central to the temple’s layout and its size typically reflects the statue it contained. While the exact arrangement varied by region and period, the naos remained the core interior space, with ancillary rooms and porches arranged around it in many designs. In later architectural contexts, the term can also appear in discussions of temple plans to emphasize the sanctified interior as a distinct zone.

In Christian architecture, the term naos is used in some traditions to refer to the main interior of a church, especially in Eastern Christian contexts, where it denotes the central worship space inside the building as distinct from the narthex or other annexes. The use and meaning can vary by tradition and language.

In astronomy, NAOS is an acronym for the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System, an early adaptive optics subsystem developed to correct atmospheric distortion in ground-based telescopes. It is part of the NAOS-CONICA instrument (NACO) on the Very Large Telescope, combining image stabilization with a near-infrared camera to achieve higher-resolution observations.