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Synonyms

pipe down

British  

verb

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Leaders cannot just tell their number two to pipe down, because they are voted in by party members.

From BBC • Oct. 11, 2025

Politico's Rachel Bade caught a rare break in McCarthy's otherwise stony facade when he "visibly shushed his members to pipe down."

From Salon • Feb. 8, 2023

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

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

Then Wang Lung flung his pipe down upon the ground and he shouted, “Am I never to be in peace?”

From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.