閱

A phono-semantic compound:

門 — gate (semantic)

兌 — joy; exchange (phonetic)

The earliest sense of 閱 is “to pass through a gate” or “to inspect from within”.

From this spatial meaning developed the abstract senses:

- looking through written material

- examining officials, troops, or work

- passing through experiences or periods of time

Thus, reading is understood metaphorically as passing one’s eyes and mind through a text.

閱 is mostly restricted to formal, administrative, or literary contexts in Korean.

열람 (閱覽) — reading; perusal

검열 (檢閱) — inspection; censorship

열독 (閱讀) — reading (formal / literary)

열병 (閱兵) — military review

閱 implies authority and evaluation, not casual reading.

Frequently used in bureaucratic, academic, and military contexts.

Related characters:

見 — to see

讀 / 読 — to read aloud or carefully

覽 / 覧 — to look over; survey

檢 / 検 — to examine

評 — to evaluate

Classical usage:

閱兵 — “to review troops”

Here 閱 means to inspect formally, not merely to look.

Confucian prose

「閱人多矣，而知己者少」

“One has encountered many people, yet those who truly understand are few.”

In this usage, 閱 means to experience or to go through.

In classical literature, 閱 often carries a temporal meaning:

「閱世既深」

“Having passed deeply through the world”

This expresses accumulated experience rather than simple observation.

In Buddhist-influenced writing, 閱 can imply passing through cycles of suffering or rebirth, emphasizing experiential knowledge rather than intellectual reading.