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The kanji 閑 contains 門 + 木. Why does gate + tree mean 'leisure'?
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2019-02-21T02:02:25.180
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question
kanji etymology
Why is the meaning of kanji 閑 "leisure"?
閑 is a compound ideogram composed of a gate latched shut with wood. And it
meant something like door latch or fencing originally.

Eventually, the meaning of spare time or leisure was borrowed from another
kanji that has the same reading, 間. This was pretty common in the history of
kanji, for kanji with the same reading to just pick up meanings from each
other. So you can't always look at a kanji's elements and just assume there
was some intent to express the modern meaning with pictures.

In Japanese, it basically only retains the adopted meaning and associated
concepts, like tranquil (as seen in 閑散, 森閑) or negligent (as seen in 閑却, 等閑).
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2019-02-21T02:19:53.910
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The word meaning _leisure_ was originally written as「閒」.

「閒」depicts _moonlight_ 「月」streaming through a _door_ 「門」, indicating the
original meaning _crack, space_. This was extended to mean _free time,
leisure_.「閒」is no longer used, so:

  * _Space_ is now written as「間」
  * _Free time, leisure_ borrowed the identically pronounced character「閑」.

「閑」is a compound of a _wooden_ obstruction「木」blocking a _door_ 「門」, indicating
the original meaning _fence, railing, obstruction_. This meaning is no longer
used by the character「閑」, so there is no confusion as to what「閑」means.

> The word representing the original meaning of「[閑]{げん・かん}」([
> _Zhengzhang_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Zhengzhang_\(1981%E2%80%931995\))
> [OC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Chinese): **/*ɡreːn/** ) is cognate
> to「[欄]{らん}」( **/*ɡ·raːn/** ; _handrail_ ) and possibly「限{げん・かん}」(
> **/*ɡrɯːnʔ/** ; _boundary, limit_ ).
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2019-02-21T02:28:19.343
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