Classica Sinica Medica

咽門 简体 咽门

yān mén

The throat gate · yan men

Also rendered: The throat gate (keeps the image of the gate) · The pharyngeal gate (anatomical, and it is narrower than 咽) · The gullet (common, and it names the tube rather than its mouth)

Physiology

Reviewed · 2026-10-25

At a glance

Pinyin
yān mén
Simplified
咽门
Literal
咽 yān — the throat, the passage behind the mouth; 門 mén — a gate, the place where something enters and is reckoned. The compound is the mouth of the gullet, not the windpipe.
Shuowen
《說文》：咽，嗌也。門，聞也，从二戶，象開闔之形。「咽門」本篇1見，為腸胃度量之首段，與舌同為篇中僅二者稱重之物。

In brief

The first measured gate of the digestive tract. The chapter weighs and measures the gut from the lip to the anus, and this is the segment between the throat and the stomach: ten liang in weight, an inch and a half across, and a foot and six inches long to the stomach. Only the tongue is given a weight besides it, and that is the point — the chapter is measuring a container, not tracing a channel. Later commentators place the gate at the top of the oesophagus and read the weight as the organ’s own; the text itself says only where it begins and how far it runs.

Senses in the classical corpus

1
The gate 咽門重十兩
咽门重十两
The throat gate weighs ten liang.
咽門重十兩 — 靈樞·腸胃
2
Its width 廣一寸半
宽一寸半
It is an inch and a half across.
廣一寸半 — 靈樞·腸胃
3
Its length 至胃長一尺六寸
到胃长一尺六寸
It runs a foot and six inches to the stomach.
至胃長一尺六寸 — 靈樞·腸胃
4
The gate above 齒以後至會厭
牙齿以后到会厌
From behind the teeth to the epiglottis.
齒以後至會厭 — 靈樞·腸胃

Occurrences in the classics

Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.

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1 passages
靈樞·腸胃 Read in context →
伯高曰：請盡言之。榖所從出入，淺深、遠近、長短之度。脣至齒，長九分；口廣二寸半，齒以後至會厭，深三寸半，大容五合。舌重十兩，長七寸，廣二寸半。咽門重十兩，廣一寸半，至胃長一尺六寸。 伯高曰：请尽言之。榖所从出入，浅深、远近、长短之度。唇至齿，长九分；口广二寸半，齿以后至会厌，深三寸半，大容五合。舌重十两，长七寸，广二寸半。咽门重十两，广一寸半，至胃长一尺六寸。
Bó Gāo yuē: qǐng jìn yán zhī. gǔ suǒ cóng chū rù, qiǎn shēn, yuǎn jìn, cháng duǎn zhī dù. chún zhì chǐ, cháng jiǔ fēn; kǒu guǎng èr cùn bàn, chǐ yǐ hòu zhì huì yàn, shēn sān cùn bàn, dà róng wǔ gě. shé zhòng shí liǎng, cháng qī cùn, guǎng èr cùn bàn. yān mén zhòng shí liǎng, guǎng yī cùn bàn, zhì wèi cháng yī chǐ liù cùn.
Bo Gao said: Let me set it out in full. The passage of grain, from entry to exit, has its measures of shallowness and depth, of distance, of length. From lip to tooth is nine fen. The mouth is two cun and a half wide; from the teeth back to the epiglottis it is three cun and a half deep and holds five ge. The tongue weighs ten liang, is seven cun long and two cun and a half broad. The pharyngeal gate weighs ten liang, is one cun and a half broad, and is one chi and six cun long down to the stomach.
「咽門」本篇1見，與舌同稱輕重，為腸胃諸段中唯二言重者；其下即接至胃之長。

Compounds built on this term

會厭
huì yàn
the epiglottis
咽門之上戶
舌重十兩
shé zhòng shí liǎng
the tongue weighs ten liang
與咽門同為稱重之物

How it has been translated

Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.

This sitethe throat gatethe text's own image
Literalthe gate of the pharynxexact, and it is stiff
Clinicalthe oesophageal inletclear, and it is an identification

Entry status

Review pending — who reviews this?

2026-10-25

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Reading path

Guided routes through the corpus, each built on a handful of chapters and their key terms.

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