| / English Dictionary |
SHUT UP
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Closely confined
Synonyms:
pent; shut up
Classified under:
Similar:
confined (not free to move about)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Cause to be quiet or not talk
Example:
Please silence the children in the church!
Synonyms:
hush; hush up; quieten; shut up; silence; still
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "shut up" is one way to...):
conquer; stamp down; subdue; suppress (bring under control by force or authority)
Cause:
hush (become quiet or still; fall silent)
Verb group:
hush; pipe down; quiesce; quiet; quiet down; quieten (become quiet or quieter)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "shut up"):
shush (silence (someone) by uttering 'shush!')
calm down; lull (become quiet or less intensive)
shout down (silence or overwhelm by shouting)
gag; muzzle (prevent from speaking out)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Sense 2
Meaning:
Refuse to talk or stop talking; fall silent
Example:
The children shut up when their father approached
Synonyms:
be quiet; belt up; button up; clam up; close up; dummy up; keep mum; shut up
Classified under:
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s
Sense 3
Meaning:
Place in a place where something cannot be removed or someone cannot escape
Example:
She locked her jewels in the safe
Synonyms:
lock; lock away; lock in; lock up; put away; shut away; shut up
Classified under:
Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging
Hypernyms (to "shut up" is one way to...):
confine (prevent from leaving or from being removed)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody PP
Somebody ----s something PP
Context examples:
Well, he’s shut up again in the cabinet; and I don’t like it, sir—I wish I may die if I like it.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
He said, “they saw my stick and handkerchief thrust out of the hole, and concluded that some unhappy man must be shut up in the cavity.”
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
And hardest of all was it to shut up the algebra or physics, put note-book and pencil aside, and close his tired eyes in sleep.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
At last it popped into her head, “The dog is not shut up—he may be running away with the steak; that’s well thought of.”
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
To be sure you must know better than that. (Laughing affectedly.)—No, no; they were shut up in the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the door.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
We were shut up in Bhurtee, the regiment of us with half a battery of artillery, a company of Sikhs, and a lot of civilians and women-folk.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal's right and consolation.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Oh, shut up!
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
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