Wiktionary
n. A vertical rectangular slide panel, often painted or decorated, used in Japan as a door or movable wall.
Wikipedia
In Japanese architecture, fusuma (襖) are vertical rectangular panels which can slide from side to side to redefine spaces within a room, or act as doors. They typically measure about wide by tall, the same size as a tatami mat, and are two or three centimeters thick. The heights of fusuma have increased in recent years due to an increase in average height of the Japanese population, and a height is now common. In older constructions, they are as small as 170 cm (5'7") high. They consist of a lattice-like wooden understructure covered in cardboard and a layer of paper or cloth on both sides. They typically have a black lacquer border and a round finger catch.
Historically, fusuma were painted, often with scenes from nature such as mountains, forests or animals. Today, many feature plain rice paper, or have industrially printed graphics of fans, autumn leaves, cherry blossom, trees, or geometric graphics. Patterns for children featuring popular characters can also be purchased.
Both fusuma and shōji (sheer, translucent paper room dividers) run on wooden rails at the top and bottom. The upper rail is called a , literally "duck's place", and the lower is called a . Traditionally these were waxed, but nowadays they usually have a vinyl lubricating strip to ease movement of the fusuma and shōji.
Along with the fusuma, shōji and tatami straw mats (as the floor) make up a typical Japanese room.
Usage examples of "fusuma".
The large tea-houses contain the possibilities for a number of rooms which can be extemporised at once by sliding paper panels, called fusuma, along grooves in the floor and in the ceiling or cross-beams.
The yadoya was a very large one, and, as sixty guests had arrived before me, there was no choice of accommodation, and I had to be contented with a room enclosed on all sides not by fusuma but shoji, and with barely room for my bed, bath, and chair, under a fusty green mosquito net which was a perfect nest of fleas.
Before you go the fusuma are slidden back, and what was your room becomes part of a great, open, matted space--an arrangement which effectually prevents fustiness.
The fusuma are light planed wood with a sweet scent, the matting nearly white, the balconies polished pine.
The yadoya at Innai was a remarkably cheerful one, but my room was entirely fusuma and shoji, and people were peeping in the whole time.
It is a town of activity and brisk trade, and manufactures a silk fabric in stripes of blue and black, and yellow and black, much used for making hakama and kimonos, a species of white silk crepe with a raised woof, which brings a high price in Tokiyo shops, fusuma, and clogs.
After a long search I could get nothing better than this room, with fusuma of tissue paper, in the centre of the din of the house, close to the doma and daidokoro.
The rooms were Japanese, the furniture Dutch, heavy claw-and-ball couches adorned with tassels, huge tables made out of solid oak and with lions sculptured at the corners, thick velvet draperies hiding most of the fusuma, the delicate Japanese sliding doors made out of slats and tightly stretched paper.
He went up on the engawa, tried the fusuma to the room adjacent to Mikio's study.