shut up

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To close (a building) so that no one can enter.

   Synonyms:

   close off, seal up

   Antonyms:

   open, open up, reopen

2. (transitive) To terminate (a business).

   Synonyms:

   end, terminate, wind up

   Antonyms:

   establish, set up, start, start up

3. (transitive) To put (someone or something) in a secure enclosed space, such as a room or container.
   • The wicked prince was shut up in the castle dungeon.
   • The engineer had shut the locomotive up in the shed for twenty years.

   Synonyms:

   lock up, lock in, seal in, stash, stash away

   Antonyms:

   release

4. (derogatory, ergative, imperative, often) Of a person, to stop talking (said by someone, often one in authority, after one has said something annoying, irrelevant, or false, during a period of peace and quiet, or when one is not allowed to talk) or arguing, or (of a person or thing) making noise.
   • You are talking so loud that I can't hear the music – would you mind shutting up?
   • He was blathering on about something, but I managed to shut him up.

   Synonyms:

   shush, hush, silence, quieten, belt up, button it, button one's lip, back that train up, can it, clam up

5. (dated, slang, transitive) To murder, kill.
   • I just heard that your wife was trying to shut you up for the insurance money.
   • Shepard: Why were they threatening you? Who do they work for?
     Dr. Chloe Michel: They work for Fist. They wanted to shut me up, keep me from telling Garrus about the quarian.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Citadel

   Synonyms:

   annihilate, bag, baptize, bereave of life, blight, bring down, bump off, bury, cack, compromised to a permanent end

Adjective

shut up (comparative more shut up, superlative most shut up)

1. Closed up or off, as in a building that no one is to enter.
   • 2010. Jem (And Sam). Ferdinand Mount.
     She did not come to Court, but she must have been taken to Montagu's house, for the Clerkenwell house was all shut up and was to be sold.
   • 1865. The Wisconsin Farmer, and Northwestern Cultivator, Volume 17. Pg. 75.
     Open sheds are too much exposed to drifting snow, and they cannot be shut up and made warm enough for early lambing.

Interjection

1. (highly impolite, dismissal) Stop talking (usually in the form of making annoying, irrelevant, or false comments, during a period of peace and quiet, or when one is not allowed to talk), arguing, crying, etc.
   • Shut up! We're sick of your whining!

   Synonyms:

   shut it, be quiet, shh, shush, silence

2. (colloquial) I don't believe it!, no way!
   • I got accepted to Yale! —Shut up, really? That's awesome!
   • No, I know what home-school is, I'm not retarded! So you've actually never been to a real school before? Shut up! Shut up!2004, Tina Fey, Mean Girls (motion picture), spoken by Regina George (Rachel McAdams)

   Synonyms:

   get out, never, no, no way, stop it, yeah right, you don't say, shut the front door, I'll go to the foot of the stairs