shut

• enPR: shŭt, IPA^(key): /ʃʌt/
• (Northern England) IPA^(key): /ʃʊt/
• (dialectal, archaic) IPA^(key): /ʃɛt/ (see shet)^[1]

• 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) 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

   • 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

8. simple past and past participle of shut

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.

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.

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: [Samuel Simmons], 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