The door was closed over.
Two of my friends are debating about this turn of phrase, which one uses and the other thinks is something only friend 1 says. The friend who uses it *was *able to find a video clip of the phrase being used in a movie the way she does…
If this turn of phrase means something to you:
a. what does it imply about the door?
b. where are you from??
No, that’s not a thing.
Never heard it, don’t know what it means. If I had to guess what somebody meant by it, I’d guess they were talking about a door that was boarded up or bricked up or otherwise rendered impassible.
I would guess the door was sealed by being bricked or plastered etc. over. I’m from Australia. A quick google says it’s not a thing except in computer programming.
Vaguely familiar but I’d understand its intended meaning as a path that is now not possible and perhaps because of stupidity, like wallpapering over a doorway.
Maybe my mom had said it.
Chicago area. Mom grew up in one Chicago’s first housing projects.
I’ve never heard of the expression, but Urban Dictionary has an entry claiming that it means closed most of the way but not fully.
Perhaps U.S. regional?
To me, it means closed and sealed. No longer a door, just a wall. Can’t even see the door anymore.
Wisconsin born and raised.
eta: It IS a thing. I’ve heard it used.
Never heard of it.
From Utah originally.
We dont’t use the term anymore. That ship has sailed.
Dennis
A common expression down our way. It means the door is not fully closed; it’s slightly ajar. There’s a gap between the door and the the jamb, but small enough that you can’t easily see into the room.
In a context in which a closed door would mean “do not disturb!”, a door closed over mean there’s no objection to your knocking, and sticking your head around the door.
On edit: I’m from Ireland.
Okay, this is beginning to make more sense now. One of her friends is in fact in Ireland, so I’m betting that is where she picked this up. Thank you 
Never seen that expression before today.
From NYC, and have never seen or heard the expression before… Had no idea what it meant, as I would and have said “sealed over”, “papered over”, or “covered/plastered/bricked up”, not “closed over”, for a door that was not removed but simply absorbed into a wall, a phenomenon that I have seen revealed IRL.
I guess now that I know some subset of Midwesterners use that phrase for that concept, I can picture it in the future.
I found a reference in a book called Under An Irish Sky by John Morgan.
Well, to me, this meaning is even further from immediate comprehensibility than the Midwestern US meaning of a door that has been sealed up.
A door that is “not fully closed” is not, in fact, closed.
Something that is “over” is something that is finished or complete, which “not fully closed” is not; or perhaps indicates something is atop another thing, which a typical door is not (unless it’s a “pet flap” type of door).
So why use either “close” or “over” for a door that is mostly, but not completely, closed? The word, as you already used, is “ajar”, already an extremely door-specific word for exactly this scenario.
But that’s why language usage is fascinating.
“Close over” with a long “o” sound in “close” might make more sense. Could it be that the original expression was something like “the door is close over” but it turned into “closed over”?
I’ve never heard the expression before, but I don’t see the mystery that you do, it seems quite intuitive.
Your analysis of over is not correct. As a preposition or adverb it usually indicates relative position, and not necessarily in the “on top of” sense. If you consider this list of phrasal verbs, it never indicates completion, and it is usually synonymous with something like across.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_phrasal_verbs_with_particle_(over)
So we’d talk about pulling curtains over a window, where over does not indicate completion, it indicates position - that the curtain is across the window, covering it.
And the act of closing something is dynamic - one may begin closing something or partially close it.
It seems quite consistent with all this other usage that “closed over” has a meaning that the door has been closed to a point that it is over (in the sense of across, covering) the gap.
I realize that what I wrote makes no sense. It’s not the vowel sound that differs, it’s the “s” sound. But the idea was too much of a stretch anyway. I think Riemann has a much more plausible theory.
I have heard the concept before, but not quite that turn of phrase. Upper midwest born and raised. The door is boarded closed or plastered over.
It is used to say that there was a door (opportunity) opened but a person missed the time window and it is now no longer available.
Same here. It is a thing. I’ve heard it, both in reference to doors and windows. It means closed and sealed, typically plastered over and now looks like just another part of the wall. I have never heard it used in an abstract sense (i.e. missed a time window). It has always referred to a physical door or window.
Grew up in West Virginia, have lived in Maryland and Pennsylvania.
I have never heard it used to mean a door that was almost closed until this thread.