shut
/ʃʌt/ verb, adjective, noun
Forms shuts shutting shutten
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To remove or block an opening, gap or passage through. “Please shut the door.”
- verb (transitive, intransitive) To make or become unreceptive. “He has shut his mind to new ideas.”
- verb (transitive, intransitive, chiefly UK) To close (a business or venue) temporarily or permanently. “They generally shut the museum each day at 6 pm.”
- verb (transitive) To put out of use or operation. “We are shutting the phone lines at 9 pm.”
- verb (intransitive) To cease operation or cease to be available. “Phone lines will shut in ten minutes.”
- verb (ergative, computing, more usually 'close') To terminate an application, window, file or database connection, etc. “Shut the file when you have finished reading data.”
- verb (transitive) To catch or snag in the act of shutting something. “He's just gone and shut his finger in the door!”
- verb (transitive) To confine in an enclosed area; to enclose. “I shut the cat in the kitchen before going out.”
- adjective Physically sealed, obstructed, folded together, etc. “A shut door barred our way into the house.”
- adjective Not available for use or operation. “Phone lines are now shut.”
- adjective (of a business or venue) Not operating or conducting trade; not allowing entrance to visitors or the public. “Banks are shut on bank holidays.”
- adjective Not receptive. “He mind is shut to new ideas.”
- adjective (especially sports) Of a club, bat or other hitting implement, angled downwards and/or (for a right-hander) anticlockwise of straight.
- adjective (heraldry) Synonym of close.
- adjective (linguistics, phonetics, archaic) Synonym of close.
- noun The act or time of shutting; close. “the shut of a door”
- noun A door or cover; a shutter.
- noun The line or place where two pieces of metal are welded together.
- noun (UK, Shropshire dialect) A narrow alley or passage acting as a short cut through the buildings between two streets.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English schitten, schetten, from Old English sċyttan (“to cause rapid movement, shoot a bolt, shut, bolt”), from Proto-West Germanic *skuttjan, from Proto-Germanic *skutjaną, *skuttijaną (“to bar, bolt”), from Proto-Germanic *skuttą, *skuttjō (“bar, bolt, shed”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewd- (“to drive, fall upon, rush”). The Modern English word was originally a dialect form; the Old English word would have normally merged with shit.
Cognate with Dutch schutten (“to shut in, lock up”), Low German schütten (“to shut, lock in”), German schützen (“to shut out, dam, protect, guard”).
Variation of chute or shute (archaic, related to shoot) from Old English scēotan.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To close so as to hinder ingress or egress; as, to shut a door or a gate; to shut one's eyes or mouth.
- verb To forbid entrance into; to prohibit; to bar; as, to shut the ports of a country by a blockade.
- verb To close itself; to become closed; as, the door shuts; it shuts hard. To shut up, to cease speaking. [Colloq.] T. Hughes.
- adjective Closed or fastened; as, a shut door.
Etymology [OE. shutten, schutten, shetten, schitten, AS. scyttan to shut or lock up (akin to D. schutten, G. schützen to protect), properly, to fasten with a bolt or bar shot across, fr. AS. sceótan to shoot. sq. root159. See Shoot.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shut”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details