門

Han character

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Radical 169 門

門 (Kangxi radical 169, 門+0, 8 strokes, cangjie input 日弓 (AN), four-corner 7777₇, composition ⿰𠁣𠃛)

1. Kangxi radical #169, ⾨.
2. Shuowen Jiezi radical №438

Further reading

• Kangxi Dictionary: page 1329, character 53
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 41208
• Dae Jaweon: page 1833, character 38
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 7, page 4281, character 1
• Unihan data for U+9580

Glyph origin

More information Historical forms of the character 門, Shang ...

Historical forms of the character 門
Shang		Western Zhou	Warring States		Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han)	Liushutong (compiled in Ming)
Bronze inscriptions	Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Chu slip and silk script	Qin slip script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

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Pictogram (象形) : a gate. Compare 戶 (OC *ɡʷaːʔ, “(one) door”), which is half of this character (𠁣).

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-muːr (“mouth; lip; to hold in mouth; to chew; face; gills”) (STEDT). Cognate with Tibetan མུར་བ (mur ba, “to masticate”), Tibetan མུར་འགྲམ (mur 'gram, “jawbone; cheek”), Mizo hmûi (“lips; upper lip”) and 吻 (OC *mɯnʔ, “lips; corner of the lips”).

“-gate”

Semantic loan from English -gate, which is a back-formation from Watergate. Also influenced by Japanese 羅生門.

Pronunciation

Definitions

門

1. gate; door; entrance; opening; portal (Classifier: 扇 m mn; 道 m c; 度 c; 條／条 c; 隻／只 c; 片 mn)
2. valve; switch
3. way of doing something; knack

   門路／门路  ―  ménlù  ―  way of doing something

4. family
5. school; sect; school of thought; tradition

   佛門／佛门  ―  fómén  ―  Buddhism

   門生／门生  ―  ménshēng  ―  disciple of a particular tradition

6. class; category
7. (taxonomy) phylum; division
8. (logic, electronics) logic gate
9. Classifier for lessons, subjects, branches of technology, and languages. ⇒ all nouns using this classifier
10. Classifier for livelihoods, trades, skills, businesses, etc.

    這門生意不好做。 [MSC, trad.]
    这门生意不好做。 [MSC, simp.]

    Zhè mén shēngyì bùhǎo zuò. [Pinyin]

    It's a tough business.

11. Classifier for thoughts, ideas, or emotions, particularly those forming a system or complex.

    你這一門心思，誰猜得到？ [MSC, trad.]
    你这一门心思，谁猜得到？ [MSC, simp.]

    Nǐ zhè yī mén xīnsī, shéi cāidé dào? [Pinyin]

    Who could have guessed all that in your mind?

12. Classifier for marriage, romantic, or family relations.

    說成一門親事／说成一门亲事  ―  shuō chéng yī mén qīnshì  ―  to successfully make a match

13. Classifier for large guns.
14. -gate (a suffix combined with keywords to form the names of scandals)

    艷照門／艳照门  ―  Yànzhàomén  ―  Edison Chen photo scandal (literally, “explicit photo scandal”)

15. (anatomy) hilum of an organ
16. a surname

Compounds

Descendants

Others:

• Wutunhua: men

See also

• (Taxonomy) 生物分類學／生物分类学; 域 (yù, “domain”), 界 (jiè, “kingdom”), 門／门 (mén, “phylum”), 綱／纲 (gāng, “class”), 目 (mù, “order”), 科 (kē, “family”), 屬／属 (shǔ, “genus”), 種／种 (zhǒng, “species”) ^{(Category: zh:Taxonomy)}

References

• “門”, in 漢語多功能字庫 (Multi-function Chinese Character Database)‎, 香港中文大學 (the Chinese University of Hong Kong), 2014–