shut

• enPR: shŭt, IPA^(key): /ʃʌt/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /ʃʊt/
• (dialectal, archaic) IPA^(key): /ʃɛt/ (see shet)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌt

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”).

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

1. (transitive, intransitive) To close, in various senses.
   1. (transitive, intransitive) To remove or block an opening, gap or passage through.

      Please shut the door.

      The light was so bright I had to shut my eyes.

      They shut the road for the festival.

      If you wait too long, the automatic door will shut.

   2. (transitive, intransitive) To make or become unreceptive.

      He has shut his mind to new ideas.

   3. (transitive, intransitive, chiefly British) To close (a business or venue) temporarily or permanently.

      They generally shut the museum each day at 6 pm.

      The supermarket shuts at eight o'clock.

      Lots of shops in the town centre have shut because of the recession.

   4. (transitive) To put out of use or operation.

      We are shutting the phone lines at 9 pm.

      They shut the airport because of a bomb scare.

   5. (intransitive) To cease operation or cease to be available.

      Phone lines will shut in ten minutes.

   6. (ergative, computing, more usually 'close') To terminate an application, window, file or database connection, etc.

      Shut the file when you have finished reading data.

      This app has a bug: when you try to sort a large spreadsheet, it shuts.

2. (transitive) To catch or snag in the act of shutting something.

   He's just gone and shut his finger in the door!

3. (transitive) To confine in an enclosed area; to enclose.

   I shut the cat in the kitchen before going out.

4. (transitive) To isolate, to close off from the world.
   • 1850, , “Canto XXIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, 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,

5. (transitive) To preclude, exclude.

   Synonym: shut out

   • 1697, Virgil, “Aeneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     shut from every shore

6. simple past and past participle of shut

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

shut (not comparable)

1. Closed, not open, in any of various senses.
   1. Physically sealed, obstructed, folded together, etc.

      A shut door barred our way into the house.

      Pleas keep your mouth shut while you are eating.

      A book lay shut on the table.

   2. Not available for use or operation.

      Phone lines are now shut.

   3. (of a business or venue) Not operating or conducting trade; not allowing entrance to visitors or the public.

      Banks are shut on bank holidays.

      The museum is shut for the Christmas holidays.

   4. Not receptive.

      He mind is shut to new ideas.

   5. (especially sports) Of a club, bat or other hitting implement, angled downwards and/or (for a right-hander) anticlockwise of straight.
2. (heraldry) Synonym of close.
3. (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.

4. Archaic form of shot (“discharged, cleared, rid of something”).
   • 1813, Thomas Bayly Howell, Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors, page 507:

     When he asked her, she said, she thanked God he was dead, (the woman was glad to get shut of him) and said he died of an ague and fever.

shut (plural shuts)

1. The act or time of shutting; close.

   the shut of a door

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: ">…] , and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     Just then returnd at ſhut of Evening Flours.

2. A door or cover; a shutter.
3. The line or place where two pieces of metal are welded together.

• cold shut

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

shut (plural shuts)

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

• (alleyway): See Thesaurus:alley

• thus, Hust, huts, Tush, Thus, STHU, tush