Etymologically
Log in

shut

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 19:30. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ʃʌt/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shutten, also shetten and shitten,[2][3] inherited from Old English scyttan (“to put a bolt in place to fasten a door”),[3][4][5] from Proto-West Germanic *skuttjan,[3][5] from the Germanic base of shoot,[5][6][2] from Proto-Indo-European *skeud- (“to shoot, chase, throw”).[3][4] It is cognate with Old Frisian sketta “to shut up, obstruct” and Dutch schutten “to shut up, obstruct”.[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put a lock, bar or bolt in place to fasten a door: about 1000, in Ælfric's Grammar.[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The idea is of shooting a bolt across a door.[5][6] From fastening with a bolt the verb came to mean moving a door or lid so as to close an opening, by the 13th century.[5] Closing by folding or bringing together, as a book or the eyes, and preventing entry or exit are from the mid-14th century,[3] as is shut one's mouth, “to stop speaking”.[3] The sense “to set free from”, by about 1500, survives only in dialect phrases such as get shut of, “to get rid of”, from the 1570s.[3][8] The adjective, “closed”, is from 1474, in Caxton's Game and Play of Chess.[4] Shut up! as a rude command to be quiet is from the mid-19th century.[8] Shutdown is from 1884, and shut-in, a person confined by illness, from 1904.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – to bolt a door.[4][7]
  • mid-14th century – to close, and shut one's mouth.[3]
  • 1474 – adjective, closed.[4]
  • 1570s – get shut of.[3]
  • mid-19th century – shut up!.[8]
  • 1884 – shutdown.[4]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To move a door, lid or window so as to block an opening; to close.
  2. To fasten with a lock or latch.
  3. To confine or keep out: shut the dog in.
  4. To fold up or bring together the parts of: shut a book.
  5. To stop operating; to close for business.

Adjective

  1. Closed; fastened.

Word family

  • reshut
  • shutdown
  • shut-eye
  • shut-in
  • shutout
  • shutter
  • open-and-shut

Usage notes

In dialect and colloquial use across Scotland, Ireland, England, America and Australia shut has many senses, among them “rid”, as in to be shut of.[9][3] A different shut, recorded from 1300, is a narrow passage or alley.[7]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)