shutout

Etymology

It is formed from English shut + out, as a noun use of the phrasal verb shut out;^[2][3][4][5] Merriam-Webster takes the bridge sense from the verb's past participle.^[6] The phrase meant "to exclude, keep out of a place" from the late 14th century.^[3] Shut is Middle English shitten, from Old English scyttan (“to put a bolt in place, shut”), from Proto-Germanic *skutjaną, from the root of shoot, Proto-Indo-European *skeud- (“to shoot, chase, throw”).^[3] Middle English also had a verb outshut, to shut out, in the mid-15th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A baseball game in which one side does not score: 1889, in the Pueblo (Colorado) Opinion.^[4][3][6] The verb shut out was used in this baseball sense from 1881,^[3] and the adjective shut-out, isolated or remote, appears in 1853.^[4] Dictionary.com dates the noun to 1850–55 and calls it an Americanism.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sports sense spread from baseball to other games and is chiefly North American;^[4] in Canadian hockey a shutout is also the credit a goalkeeper earns for keeping the other team scoreless, as in the Edmonton Journal in 1955.^[7] Figuratively it is any failure to score, in American slang also romantic or sexual, as in Max Shulman's Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1957).^[8][4] In bridge, a shut-out bid is a pre-emptive one, meant to keep the opponents from bidding (adjective 1916, noun 1936).^[4][6] In industry it was used for a lockout from 1924.^[4][9]

Timeline

• 1853 – adjective shut-out, isolated, remote.^[4]
• 1881 – verb shut out, to keep the other team from scoring in baseball.^[3]
• 1889 – noun, a game in which one side does not score.^[4][3][6]
• 1916 – adjective, of a pre-emptive bid in bridge.^[4]
• 1924 – a lockout.^[4]
• 1936 – noun, a pre-emptive bid in bridge.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A game or match in which one side fails to score: The pitcher threw a four-hit shutout.^{[6][9][10][4]}
2. (ice hockey) Such a game credited to the goalie who kept the other team from scoring.^[7]
3. A pre-emptive bid in bridge.^[6][4]
4. In backgammon, a position in which enough men are on a player's inner table to keep the opponent's men from entering it.^[6]
5. A lockout.^[9][10][4]

Related words

• shutdown
• shutoff
• shut
• lockout
• shut-in

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Dollinger, Stefan, ed., A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed. (online), Vancouver: University of British Columbia, dchp.arts.ubc.ca
8. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin