Word Choice – Is It ‘Close-Minded’ or ‘Closed-Minded’?

word-choice

This good answer ended up with a lot of comments about whether the phrase is "close-minded" or "closed-minded." Since this debate seems to have reasonable arguments on both sides, I thought a new question would be prudent.

Personally, I think it is close-minded, the opposite of open-minded, and that both of these (open and close) use the intransitive forms of these verbs. In another words, I think the mind opens or the mind closes, as opposed to the mind being opened or closed.

But I thought the comments raised some interesting points about the word formation, and I may have to reconsider my opinion.

Is it "close-minded" or "closed-minded"?

EDIT:
The NGrams are nice to demonstrate usage, but what I would like to know is more along the lines of why rather than which.

Best Answer

Close-minded was first, but closed-minded is dominant:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=close+minded%2C+closed+minded&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Here's the earliest close-minded reference I can find from a Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, by Clarke Abel, 1818:

http://books.google.com/books?id=q68aAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA352&dq=%22close+minded%22+OR+%22closed+minded%22&hl=en&ei=EGTuTdWQKOTV0QHws5zfAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=close%20minded&f=false

I found closed minded back to 1913 in The Century Magazine:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CLgGAQAAIAAJ&q=%22closed%20minded%22&dq=%22closed%20minded%22&hl=en&ei=bWnuTY2yOMjx0gGO3eDeAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBQ

Edit:
After considering @FumbleFingers' comments here and his subsequent answer, I have to agree that most of the earlier close-minded references found through Google Books (including the one above) are using close |kloʊs| in this sense (from NOAD):

• not willing to give away money or information; secretive : you're very close about your work, aren't you?

This is also proven by this definition of uncommunicative from John Craig's A New Universal Etymological Technological, and Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language, 1859:

http://books.google.com/books?id=vMkiCh_mhzAC&pg=PA958&dq=%22close+minded%22&hl=en&ei=yHvuTdqrJNOutwfC8IyuCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBzgo#v=onepage&q=close%20minded&f=false

It seems the phrase was once a common description for someone who "kept their own counsel"—usually used as a derogative, but sometimes as a compliment.

However, I did find this earlier use of close-minded specifically to mean the opposite of open-minded from an 1898 issue of The Outlook:

http://books.google.com/books?id=kD4BAg1ngJYC&pg=PA977&dq=%22close+minded%22&hl=en&ei=j4HuTcWNN8-ctweqkIW5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=%22close%20minded%22&f=false

I also found evidence of a shift towards this sense of close-minded in other writings by the early 1900s. So, to conclude, I think the only thing new about the confusion evident by the 1960s was the frequency of the two terms in print. I realize this may not ultimately answer the question, which is correct, but the timeline seems significant to me.

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