shut up
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
Verb (transitive):
- To cause someone to be quiet or stop talking: To make a person or group cease speaking, often through command or forceful action.
- To confine or enclose securely: To place someone or something in a location from which they cannot leave or be removed.
Verb (intransitive):
- To stop talking; to become silent: To cease one's own speech, often abruptly or in response to a command or situation.
Adjective (predicative):
- Closely confined or enclosed: Being in a state of secure confinement or isolation.
Usage Examples
- Verb (transitive):
- The teacher had to shut up the noisy students before the exam could start.
- He shut his valuables up in a safe deposit box.
- Verb (intransitive):
- I wish you would shut up for a moment and listen.
- The audience finally shut up when the conductor raised his baton.
- Adjective:
- After the scandal, the CEO was kept shut up in his office, away from the press.
Advanced Usage
- Imperative Use: Often used as a direct, forceful, and sometimes rude command.
- Shut up! I can't hear myself think.
- Reflexive Use: Can be used to describe one's own action of becoming silent.
- I finally shut myself up and let her explain.
Variants and Related Words
- Shut away (phrasal verb): To isolate or seclude.
- She shut herself away to finish her novel.
- Silence (verb): A more formal synonym for causing quiet.
- Confine (verb): A more general synonym for the act of enclosing.
Synonyms
- Verb (quiet): Hush, quiet (down), silence, muzzle.
- Verb (confine): Lock up, imprison, enclose, seal in.
- Verb (stop talking): Be quiet, hold one's tongue, clam up.
Related Phrasal Verbs
- Shut up shop: To close a business, either temporarily or permanently.
- The old bookstore finally shut up shop last year.
- Shut someone/something away: To confine or hide someone/something.
- The dangerous documents were shut away in a vault.
Related Idioms
- Put a sock in it: (Informal, idiomatic) A humorous way to tell someone to be quiet.
- Oh, put a sock in it! You've been complaining all day.
- Hold your peace: (Formal/idiomatic) To remain silent, especially when one has the right to speak.
- If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace.
Verb
- cause to be quiet or not talk
- Please silence the children in the church!
- place in a place where something cannot be removed or someone cannot escape
- The parents locked her daughter up for the weekend
- She locked her jewels in the safe
- refuse to talk or stop talking; fall silent
- The children shut up when their father approached