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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.

It was also attended by consultant microbiologist Dr Christine Peters, a whistleblower who says she had been flagging concerns about the hospital buildings since 2014 but was advised to "pipe down".

From BBC • Feb. 5, 2026

Like Indy, kids get dragged around to places they don’t want to go to for reasons that aren’t explained, and when they whine, they’re commanded to pipe down.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 1, 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

Sometimes I have to slip off my thongs to throw at them before they’ll pipe down.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

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.