閉

Ideogrammatic compound composed of:

門 (문 문) — door; gate.

才 (재주 재) — in early script originally a sapling sprouting from the ground, but in this character it was borrowed to depict a bar / bolt placed across a gate.

Thus 閉 depicts a barred gate — the act of closing or shutting something.

Bronze and seal script forms show a gate with a horizontal bar, emphasizing the physical blocking action.

Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字):

「閉，闔也。从門，才聲。」

“閉 means to shut. Formed from 門 (door) with 才 as the phonetic.”

Note: later commentaries explain 才 in 閉 as representing a bar, though Xu Shen took it as phonetic.

閉門 (폐문) — to close the door; closed

封閉 (봉폐) — to seal up; to close off

閉塞 (폐색) — to block; to obstruct (literal or metaphorical)

閉口 (폐구) — to shut one’s mouth; remain silent

閉館 (폐관) — to close (a building, library, or institution)

閉眼 (폐안) — to close the eyes

Examples:

閉門 (폐문) - 문을 닫다; to shut the door

閉鎖 (폐쇄) - 폐쇄하다; 차단하다; to close off; to seal; to block

閉塞 (폐색) - 막히다; 통행이 단절되다; to be obstructed; impassable

閉口不語 (폐구불어) - 입을 닫고 말을 하지 않다; to keep silent and say nothing

閉店 (폐점) - 가게를 닫다; 폐업하다; to close a shop; to cease business

In classical writing, 閉 can symbolize:

- restriction of movement

- constraint of thought or speech

- defensive closure (physical or emotional)

- the end of a cycle (closing of a time, gate, or opportunity).

Commentaries sometimes contrast 閉 with 開 (to open), representing the fundamental duality of openness and closure in governance, ethics, and cosmology.

《孟子·梁惠王下》 (Mencius)

「夫民，閉之使不得出，則亦閉之使不得入。」

“If you shut the people in so they cannot go out, you also shut them in so they cannot come in” — Using 閉 in the literal sense of restricting passage through a gate.

《左傳·僖公三十三年》 (Zuo Zhuan)

「晉師閉門而不出。」

“The Jin army shut their gates and did not come out” - 閉門: to close/lock a city gate for defensive purposes.

《史記·廉頗藺相如列傳》 (Records of the Grand Historian)

「閉之門而謝之。」

“He shut the gate and apologized to them.”

《漢書·食貨志》 (Book of Han)

「市閉而不通。」

“The marketplace was closed and impassable.”

Expanded meaning: “to block / shut down functioning.”

《禮記·月令》 (Book of Rites)

「閉藏於室。」

“[The grains] are shut away and stored in the chambers.”

Confusion with 廢 (폐):

The two characters share the same Sino-Korean reading 폐, but:

閉 = to close, shut (semantic connection: door)

廢 = to abandon, discard, abolish (semantic connection: ruins / collapse)

Hence, spelling distinction is important in academic and legal texts.

閉 is notable for being the only Hanja read as “폐” included in middle-school basic Hanja curriculum among elementary-level Sino-Korean education characters.

This makes it more familiar to Korean students than many other characters in the same phonetic family.