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)."

1837, in Georgia vernacular, representing a U.S. colloquial pronunciation of shut. Especially in the expression get shet of "get rid of."

c. 1400, "keep from view or use, render inaccessible" early 15c., "to lock up, confine," from shut (v.) + up (adv.). The meaning "cause to stop talking" is from 1814 (Jane Austen). The intransitive meaning "cease from speaking" is from 1840, also as a command to be silent, sometimes colloquialized in print as shuddup (1940). Put up or shut up "defend yourself or be silent" is U.S. slang, by 1868.

also shut-down, "a discontinuance, act of shutting down," 1857, from the verbal phrase; see shut (v.) + down (adv.). Especially in reference to factory work (by 1884); shut down (v.) "stop working, become or be idle" is attested by 1877. By 1911 of machines; 1945 of nuclear reactors.

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.

"person confined from normal social intercourse," 1904, from the verbal phrase (attested by late 14c. as "lock (someone) in (some place);" from shut (v.) + in (adv.). As an adjective, shut-in "enclosed, hemmed in" is attested by 1849, especially of persons, "isolated and confined by disability, etc."

also shut-out, 1889 in sports (baseball), "game in which one side does not score," from the verbal phrase shut out "exclude from a situation, deny (someone) right of entry to a place" (late 14c.), attested from 1881 in the sports sense of "not allow (the other team) to score any runs in a full game" (baseball); from shut (v.) + out (adv.). Middle English had a verb outshut "to shut out, exclude," mid-15c.

1540s, "one who shuts" (see shut (v.)); the meaning "movable wooden or iron frame or screen used as a cover for a window" is from 1720s (probably short for window-shutters, attested from 1680s). The photographic sense of "device for opening and closing the aperture of a lens" is from 1862.