closed book

See synonyms for closed book on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. something that is not known or cannot be understood; a mystery or puzzle: Abstract art is a closed book as far as I'm concerned.

Origin of closed book

1
First recorded in 1910–15

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use closed book in a sentence

  • The girl sat with closed book, looking at his face as he slept.

    Wayside Courtships | Hamlin Garland
  • I love novels, but there is no wonderful novel which I so much should like to read as the closed book which is your soul.

    Polly the Pagan | Isabel Anderson
  • He does not read, and so knows nothing of the inspiration of literature, and the past is to him a closed book.

    Spirit and Music | H. Ernest Hunt
  • Although Valentine and his two comrades might interrogate the desert, it remained dumb and indecipherable as a closed book.

  • Her face turned deadly pale, and she clenched the closed book in her pallid hands.

    Hubert's Wife | Minnie Mary Lee

British Dictionary definitions for closed book

closed book

noun
  1. something deemed unknown or incapable of being understood

  2. a matter that has been finally concluded and admits of no further consideration

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012