shut | Search Online Etymology Dictionary

93 entries found.

Old English scyttan "to put (a bolt) in place so as to fasten a door or gate, bolt, shut to; discharge, pay off," from West Germanic *skutjan (source also of Old Frisian schetta, Middle Dutch schutten "to shut, shut up, obstruct"), from PIE root *skeud- "to shoot, chase, throw." Related: Shutting.

Meaning "to close by folding or bringing together" is from mid-14c. Meaning "prevent ingress and egress" is from mid-14c. Sense of "to set (someone) free (from)" (c. 1500) is obsolete except in dialectal phrases such as to get shut of. To shut (one's) mouth "desist from speaking" is recorded from mid-14c.

shut-in (n.)

"person confined from normal social intercourse," 1904, from the verbal phrase, from shut (v.) + in (adv.).

shut-eye (n.)

colloquial for "sleep," 1899, from shut (v.) + eye (n.). Hans Christian Andersen's "Ole Shut-eye," about a being who makes children sleepy, came out 1842; "The Shut-Eye Train" popular children's poem by Eugene Field, is from 1896.

shut up (v.)

c. 1400, "keep from view or use," from shut (v.) + up (adv.). Meaning "cause to stop talking" is from 1814; intransitive meaning "cease from speaking" is from 1840. Put up or shut up "defend yourself or be silent" is U.S. slang, by 1868.

shet

1837 representing U.S. colloquial pronunciation of shut.

shutdown (n.)

also shut-down, 1884, of factories, etc.; 1911 of machines; from shut (v.) + down (adv.).

shutter (n.)

1540s, "one who shuts" (see shut (v.)); meaning "movable wooden or iron screen for a window" is from 1680s. Photographic sense of "device for opening and closing the aperture of a lens" is from 1862.

shutout (n.)

also shut-out, 1889 in baseball sense, from verbal phrase shut out "exclude from a situation" (late 14c.; from 1881 in the sports score sense), from shut (v.) + out (adv.). Middle English had a verb outshut "to shut out, exclude," mid-15c.

*skeud-

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to shoot, chase, throw."

It forms all or part of: scot-free; scout (v.2) "to reject with scorn;" sheet (n.1) "cloth, covering;" sheet (n.2) "rope that controls a sail;" shoot; shot; shout; shut; shuttle; skeet; wainscot.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit skundate "hastens, makes haste;" Old Church Slavonic iskydati "to throw out;" Lithuanian skudrus "quick, nimble;" Old English sceotan "to hurl missiles," Old Norse skjota "to shoot with (a weapon)."

exclude (v.)

"to shut out, debar from admission or participation, prevent from entering or sharing," mid-14c., from Latin excludere "keep out, shut out, hinder," from ex "out" (see ex-) + claudere "to close, shut" (see close (v.)). Related: Excluded; excluding.

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