shut up
(tr) to prevent all access to
(tr) to confine or imprison
informal to cease to talk or make a noise or cause to cease to talk or make a noise: often used in commands
(intr) (of horses in a race) to cease through exhaustion from maintaining a racing pace
Words Nearby shut up
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
How to use shut up in a sentence
Which was sweet and also troubling, because it meant that I have never shut up about wanting to be Peter Pan.
The Cast of ‘Peter Pan Live!’ Knows You Hatewatched ‘The Sound of Music’ | Kevin Fallon | December 2, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST“Sit down and shut up” was how all important family discussions began and ended where the rest of America grew up.
“RR—All of us tell everyone in our shops to shut up,” Weinberger recorded the president saying.
How the Reagan White House Bungled Its Response to Iran-Contra Revelations | Malcolm Byrne | November 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAs Ransdell walks off, students can be heard muttering “go away,” and “shut up.”
However, telling them they could have shut up and put up is patently unfair.
Another crash, which nearly shut up his spine like a telescope, told him that there were no wings.
The Giant of the North | R.M. BallantyneThe gnarled hands shut up into clenched fists, and the feeble voice trailed off in an agonized moan.
Raw Gold | Bertrand W. SinclairI have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims Version | VariousThese mulls are placed in rows and shut up in separate cupboards, to keep in the dust.
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce | E. R. Billings.Holy thoughts and affections unexpressed are sometimes like a fire shut up in the bones.
The Ordinance of Covenanting | John Cunningham
Other Idioms and Phrases with shut up
Imprison, confine, enclose, as in The dog was shut up in the cellar for the night, or She shut up her memories and never talked about the past. [c. 1400]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Browse