闭口不言 — Chinese idiom

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.