Word.ws English Dictionary

putting up or shutting up

putting up or shutting up is the present participle and gerund of put up or shut up.

Meaning of put up or shut up

Verb

put up or shut up (third-person singular simple present puts up or shuts up, present participle putting up or shutting up, simple past and past participle put up or shut up)

  1. (idiomatic) To desist from saying something unless one is able to prove it; to act in a manner that makes further talk unnecessary.
    • "If the evidence for modern Darwinian theory is so overwhelming, they should have called the bluff on the other side and come and made their arguments. ... They should have put up or shut up."2005 June 21, Cornelia Dean, “Opting Out in the Debate on Evolution”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 11 Feb 2021, retrieved 22 Jun 2011

Questions about putting up or shutting up

What is putting up or shutting up the present participle and gerund of?
Putting up or shutting up is the present participle and gerund of put up or shut up.

Words near putting up or shutting up in the dictionary

  1. putting up a show
  2. putting up on
  3. putting up one's dukes
  4. putting up one's hand
  5. putting up one's hands
  6. putting up or shutting up
  7. putting up to
  8. putting up with
  9. putting wood in t'hole
  10. putting wood in t’hole
  11. putting words in someone's mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting up or shutting up (page history and authors); put up or shut up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “putting up or shutting up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/putting_up_or_shutting_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.