Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DOOR, n. [Sax. dora, dur, dure; G. thür; D. deur; Sw. dör; Dan. dör; Gr. θυρα; W. dör; Ir. doras; Arm. dor; Basque, dorrea; Russ. dver; Persic, دَرْ dar; Sans. dura; Armenian, turu; Ch. תרע or תרעא; Syr. ܬܪܥܐ; Ar. تَرْعَهٌ taroah. It is also in the Slavonic languages, Polish, Bohemian, Carinthian, &c. The verb תרע, ܬܪܥtaro, in Ch. and Syr. signifies to tear or cut open, to open or break open; in Syr. also, to pray, to supplicate, to burst, to crack; in Ar. to rush headlong, to strive, to crowd, to fill. In Dutch, door is through, G. durch. In Tartar, thurne is a door. Class Dr, No. 42. The Hebrew שער, a gate, seems to be the same word dialectically varied, and the verb coincides in sense with the Arabic, supra, to rush. The primary sense of the verb is to press, to drive, to rush. Hence a door is a passage, or break.]

1. An opening or passage into a house, or other building, or into any room, apartment or closet, by which persons enter. Such a passage is seldom or never called a gate.
2. The frame of boards, or any piece of board or plank that shuts the opening of a house, or closes the entrance into an apartment or any inclosure, and usually turning on hinges.
3. In familiar language, a house; often in the plural, doors. My house is the first door from the corner. We have also the phrases, within doors, in the house; without doors, out of the house, abroad.
4. Entrance; as, the door of life. – Dryden.
5. Avenue; passage; means of approach or access. An unforgiving temper shuts the door against reconciliation, or the door of reconciliation. I am the door; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. – John x. A door was opened to me by the Lord. – 2 Cor. ii. To lie at the door, in a figurative sense, is to be imputable or chargeable to one. If the thing is wrong, the fault lies at my door. Next door to, near to; bordering on. A riot unpunished, is but next door to a tumult. – L'Estrange. Out of door or doors, quite gone; no more to be found. [Not now used.] – Dryden. In doors, within the house; at home.