pipe down

British  

verb

1. informal (intr, adverb) to stop talking, making noise, etc

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pipe down Idioms  

1. Stop talking, be quiet, as in I wish you children would pipe down. This idiom is also used as an imperative, as in Pipe down! We want to listen to the opera. It comes from the navy, where the signal for all hands to turn in was sometimes sounded on a whistle or pipe. By 1900 it had been transferred to more general use.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pipe down

"In order to avoid customers being driven chicken jalfrezi by a cacophony of sound, we are kindly asking phone users to pipe down," he added.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

On Thursday night, Green motioned to the TD Garden crowd to pipe down, informing the Boston Celtics’ fans that their team’s third-quarter run would not be enough to stop the Warriors’ era.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2022

Bongino, instead of replying with statistics or facts, instead told Rivera to "take a Valium" and "pipe down."

From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2021

There are flies out there who are saying to one another: “Can’t she just pipe down for five freakin’ minutes and let us enjoy the ointment?”

From The Guardian ● Feb. 13, 2020

“They don’t pipe down soon, the whole neighborhood will turn out to watch.”

From "Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

Related Words

• cut off
• gag
• muffle
• mute
• muzzle
• quash
• quell
• squelch
• stifle
• subdue
• suppress