闋 (què) – to close or shut the door after finishing something; to be at rest; to end; the expiry of a period of mourning; a numerical adjunct for songs; empty, blank
In addition to all the above meanings, this character is also used as a measure word (量詞 [量词] liàngcí) for words (詞 [词] cí) and indeed measure words themselves. Measure words or classifiers are used when counting things in Chinese, and also in Japanese, Thai and a number of other languages of East Asia. In English we have a few measure words, such as a box of matches, a sheet of paper, a pint of milk, a can of worms, etc. In Chinese there are about 150 such words and they have to be used when you add a number to a noun.
You can’t just say, for example, two tables, or three letters, instead you have to add a measure word between the number and the noun – for tables the measure word is 張 [张] (zhāng), which means sheet and is used for flat objects (paper, tables, etc.), faces, bows, paintings, tickets and constellations, e.g. 兩張桌子 (liǎng zhāng zhuòzi) – two tables. For letters the measure word is 封 (fēng), e.g. 三封信 (sān fēng xìn) – three letters (the kind you put in an envelope).
Fortunately there is a default measure word 個 [个] (ge) which you can use if you can’t remember the correct one.
