Word.ws English Dictionary

shut out

shut out is the nonstandard spelling of shutout.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To prevent from entering; to block or exclude.
    • His wife shut him out of his own house.
    • This triple-glazing shuts out the noise of the traffic.
  2. (transitive) To hide from sight.
    • The high wall shut out the countryside beyond.
    • It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the...1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC
  3. (transitive) To refuse to be open and vulnerable toward.
    • No! Why? Why do you shut me out? Why do you shut THE WORLD out?2013, Jennifer Lee, Frozen, spoken by Elsa (Idina Menzel)
  4. To prevent from scoring; to perform a shutout.

Meaning of shutout

Noun

shutout (plural shutouts)

  1. Closing and forbidding entry, as a lockout in which management prevents works from working.
    • A shutout is a reverse strike: the union complained and the workers wanted to work, but management was opposed.
  2. A game that ends with the losing side being held scoreless.
    • The score wasn't just lopsided: it was a shutout.

Synonyms of shut out

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

Forms of shut out

Noun
pluralshut outs
Verb
third-person singular presentshuts out
present participleshutting out
past participleshut out
pastshut out

Words formed from shut out

Questions about shut out

What does shut out mean?
Shut out means to prevent from entering; to block or exclude.
What is shut out the nonstandard spelling of?
Shut out is the nonstandard spelling of shutout.
What part of speech is shut out?
Shut out is a verb.
What is the past tense of shut out?
The past tense of shut out is shut out.

Words near shut out in the dictionary

  1. shut one's face
  2. shut one's gob
  3. shut one's head
  4. shut one's mouth
  5. shut one's trap
  6. shut out
  7. shut outs
  8. shut the box
  9. shut the door
  10. shut the fridge
  11. shut the front door

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shut out (page history and authors); shutout (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: “shut out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shut_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.