闭口不言 — Chinese idiom
闭口不言
bì kǒu bù yán
Traditional: 閉口不言
Meaning
- to keep silent
Character by character
- 闭bìto shut, to close; to obstruct, to block
- 口kǒumouth; entrance, gate, opening
- 不bùno, not, un-; negative prefix
- 言yánwords, speech; to speak, to say
Idioms sharing a character
- 夜不闭户 yè bù bì hù
- 撒手闭眼 sā shǒu bì yǎn
- 深闭固拒 shēn bì gù jù
- 闭口不谈 bì kǒu bù tán
- 闭月羞花 bì yuè xiū huā
- 闭门不出 bì mén bù chū
- 闭门塞窦 bì mén sè dòu
- 闭门觅句 bì mén mì jù
- 闭门造车 bì mén zào chē
- 三缄其口 sān jiān qí kǒu
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.