A door is a movable structure used to open and close an entrance, typically consisting of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or spins inside a space.
When open, doors admit people, animals, ventilation, and light. The door is used to control the physical atmosphere within a space by enclosing the air drafts, so that interiors may be more effectively heated or cooled. Doors are significant in preventing the spread of fire. They act as a barrier to noise. Most doors are equipped with locking mechanisms to allow entrance to certain people and keep out others.
Doors are used to screen areas of a building for aesthetics, keeping formal and utility areas separate. Doors also have an aesthetic role in creating an impression of what lies beyond. Doors are often symbolically endowed with ritual purposes, and the guarding or receiving of the keys to a door, or being granted access to a door can have special significance. Similarly, doors and doorways frequently appear in metaphorical or allegorical situations, literature and the arts, often as a portent of change.
Read more about Door: Applications, Design and Styles, History, Door-related Accidents
Famous quotes containing the word door:
“If one does not do evil things in the daytime, one need not fear knocks on the door in the middle of the night.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the lovliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“... the door that nobody else will go in at, seems always to swing open widely for me.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)