shut

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English

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle English shutten, shetten, from Old English scyttan (“to cause rapid movement, shoot a bolt, shut, bolt”), 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”).

Cognate with Dutch schutten (“to shut in, lock up”), Low German schütten (“to shut, lock in”), German schützen (“to shut out, dam, protect, guard”).

Verb

shut (third-person singular simple present shuts, present participle shutting, simple past shut, past participle shut or (obsolete, dialectal) shutten)

  1. (transitive) To close, to stop from being open.
    Synonym: close
    Please shut the door.
    The light was so bright I had to shut my eyes.
  2. (intransitive) To close, to stop being open.
    Synonym: close
    If you wait too long, the automatic door will shut.
  3. (transitive or intransitive, chiefly British) To close (a business) temporarily.
    The pharmacy is shut on Sunday.
  4. (transitive) To confine in an enclosed area.
    I shut the cat in the kitchen before going out.
  5. (transitive) To isolate, to close off from the world.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, Canto XXIII, page 39:
      Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
      ⁠Or breaking into song by fits;
      ⁠Alone, alone, to where he sits,
      The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot
      Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
      ⁠I wander, often falling lame, […]
  6. (transitive) To catch or snag in the act of shutting something.
    He's just gone and shut his finger in the door!
  7. (transitive) To preclude, exclude.
    Synonym: shut out
Usage notes

Except when part of one of the derived terms listed below, almost every use of shut can be replaced by close. The reverse is not true – there are many uses of close that cannot be replaced by shut.

Derived terms
phrasal verbs derived from shut
single words and hyphenated compounds derived from shut
multiword terms derived from shut
Translations

Adjective

shut (not comparable)

  1. Closed; not open.
    Synonym: closed
    A shut door barred our way into the house.
  2. (linguistics, phonetics, archaic) Synonym of close
    • 1810, Benjamin Humphrey Smart, A practical grammar of English pronunciation, page 344:
      Whenever a syllable is formed with a long, that is an open vowel, they account the syllable long; and whenever formed with a short, that is a shut vowel, they reckon it short.
Derived terms
Translations
closed — see closed

Noun

shut (plural shuts)

  1. The act or time of shutting; close.
    the shut of a door
  2. A door or cover; a shutter.
  3. The line or place where two pieces of metal are welded together.
Derived terms

Etymology 2

Variation of chute or shute (archaic, related to shoot) from Old English scēotan.

Noun

shut (plural shuts)

  1. (British, Shropshire dialect) A narrow alley or passage acting as a short cut through the buildings between two streets.
Synonyms

References

  1. ^ Stanley, Oma (1937) “I. Vowel Sounds in Stressed Syllables”, in The Speech of East Texas (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 2), New York: Columbia University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, § 12, page 27.

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