shut down

shut down verb: to close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily.

Verb

shut down (third-person singular simple present shuts down, present participle shutting down, simple past and past participle shut down)

(transitive) To close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily.
- The store was shut down at the end of the year.
- The company shuts down underperforming lines.
1. (ergative, transitive) To turn off or stop.
  - It's a good idea to shut down the machine before you leave.
  - My computer is shutting down as we speak.
2. (intransitive, transitive) To stop offering a service, such as a bar; to perform the necessary tasks to stop a service or close a function.
  - The restaurant shuts down at two o'clock in the morning.
  - Mary will shut down the breakfast buffet at ten-thirty.
3. (dated, intransitive, transitive) To become dark.
  - Once the night shut down, I couldn't see my way home.
  - The night shutting down, we could see but little of the wreckage offshore; but, as the sea came high up on the cliffs, we could not force ourselves to go away from the place, so great was the fascination of the storm.1907, Ruel Perley Smith, Prisoners of Fortune: A Tale of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, page 100
(figuratively, transitive) To suppress, block out, or reject something.
- She made a proposal to reorganize the department, but management shut her down.
- I asked her out, but she shut that down.
1. (figuratively, transitive) To render (something) ineffective.
  - We shut down the other team's strategy.
2. (figuratively, intransitive, transitive) To emotionally withdraw into oneself as a defense mechanism; to block out external stressors.
  - I can't talk to him about the accident; he just shuts down anytime I try.
(slang, auto racing, car culture) To pass (another vehicle), especially quickly.
- I opened that throttle and shut him down.
- Tach it up, tach it up / Buddy gonna shut you down1963, Brian Wilson, Roger Christian, “Shut Down”, performed by The Beach Boys

shut down meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

shut down in Tamil

கடை அடைப்பு, வேலை நிறுத்தம், இயக்க நிறுத்தம்

shut down in Urdu

to turn off or stop: بند کرنا

shut down in Malayalam

close (down), cease activity, cease operating: അടയ്ക്കുക, അടച്ചുപൂട്ടുക, കടയടയ്ക്കുക, പ്രവർത്തനം നിറുത്തുക, ജോലിനിർത്തുക, വ്യാപാരം അവസാനിപ്പിക്കുക

shut down in Kannada

ಮುಚ್ಚು, ಆರಿಸು, ಕೊನೆಗೊಳಿಸು, ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸು

More languagesFewer languages

shut down in Gujarati: બંધ bandh
shut down in Nepali: बन्द गर्नु banda garnu
shut down in Malay: mematikan
shut down in Indonesian: mematikan
shut down in Vietnamese: tắt nguồn

Examples of shut down in a sentence

They are planning to shut down the entire building at the end of the month.
The time is now, the place the grim industrial city of Shaoyang, China, which has just been informed that its No. 2 Space Rocket Factory is going to shut down.2001 November 2, Justin Hill, Carolyn See, “The Once and Future China / The Drink and Dream Teahouse”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN...
Safety devices ensure that the engines are automatically shut down in the event of overspeed, low pressure in the lubricating oil system, low cooling-water pressure, or high cooling-water temperature.1955 October, “Main-Line Diesel-Electric Locomotives for Ireland”, in Railway Magazine, page 718:
On the assistant's side of the cab, another light shows should the train heating boiler shut down.1958 June, “Main-Line Diesel-Electric Locomotives for the Eastern Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 395:
On the morning of Thursday, November 3, flood water rose over the conductor rails in platforms 1 to 3 of Lewes station and the electric service to London had to be shut down.1961 January, “Talking of Trains: Flooding at Lewes”, in Trains Illustrated, page 5:

Synonyms of shut down

Forms of shut down

third-person singular present	shuts down
present participle	shutting down
past participle	shut down
past	shut down

Words formed from shut down

shutdown

Questions about shut down

What does shut down mean?: Shut down means to close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily.
What is shut down in Tamil?: Shut down in Tamil is கடை அடைப்பு, வேலை நிறுத்தம், இயக்க நிறுத்தம். See Shut down meaning in Tamil.
How do you use shut down in a sentence?: They are planning to shut down the entire building at the end of the month.
What part of speech is shut down?: Shut down is a verb.
What is the past tense of shut down?: The past tense of shut down is shut down.

Words near shut down in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: shut down (page history and authors); shut down (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shut down (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); shut down (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); બંધ (Gujarati) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shut down.wav.

Cite this entry: “shut down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shut_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.