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閉門造車

简闭门造车 · 繁閉門造車

Mandarin · pinyin bì mén zào chē

lit. to shut oneself away and build a cart (idiom)
fig. to work on a project in isolation, without caring for outside realities

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Characters in this entry

閉: Look up this written character
門: mén · gate, door, entrance, opening; Kangxi radical 169
造: zào · construct, build, make, begin; prepare
車: chē · cart, vehicle; carry in a cart; Kangxi radical 159
闭: bì · shut, close; obstruct, block up
门: mén · gate, door, entrance, opening
车: chē · cart, vehicle; carry in cart

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

4–2–4–1 · bi4 men2 zao4 che1

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

閉門造車 · find source passages ↗ · 闭门造车 · find source passages ↗

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 1 sense · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

bai3 mun4 zou6 geoi1

Cantonese word readings for 閉門造車. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

phrase

(idiomatic) do something irrespective of external circumstances; to operate in a vacuum

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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