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The original was posted on /r/learnjapanese by /u/artsyhugh on 2025-05-16 16:58:16+00:00.

You’ve probably heard of the concept of contronyms in English. Apparently Japanese has these too, and here’s a weird one: 開き hiraki.

開く hiraku famously means “open”. It works very similarly to open in English, literally as well as figuratively:

• 門を開く: open a gate
• 目を開く: open your eyes
• 心を開く: open your heart; open up and share your feelings
• ファイルを開く: open a file
• 傘を開く: open an umbrella
• 集会を開く: open/start/hold a meeting
• 展覧会を開く: open/start/hold an exhibition
• 店を開く: open/start a store (start a new one, or open an already established one)

In the last three examples, 開く can mean “open” in the sense of “starting something anew”. Given this meaning, you’d expect 開き to just mean “opening”.

So can you guess what 集会をお開きにする means? “Open/start a meeting”? Nope, it’s actually “close/end/adjourn a meeting”. WTF, Japanese?

Apparently there’s a reason for this, and it’s because of a weird, yet understandable superstition that Japanese people have. If you look up 開き or お開き in Japanese dictionaries, they explain that “opening” is used instead of “ending” or “closing” because those words are inauspicious. One context where you probably don’t want to invoke an “end” is a wedding. The Kōjien explains this pretty well:

戦場・婚儀や一般の宴席などで、「逃げる」「帰る」「終わる」「閉じる」などというのを忌んでいう

It’s taboo to say things like “retreat”, “go home”, “end”, “close” on a battlefield, at a wedding ceremony or at any party.

Basically, Japanese people seem to be afraid certain verbs can bring about bad luck in some very specific circumstances. You don’t want to say “retreat” in a battle even though that’s exactly what you’re doing, probably because it’ll cause you more losses later. And you probably don’t want to risk a bad outcome for your marriage by uttering the word “end” at your wedding, even though you do have to literally end the ceremony eventually.