TO SHUT UP, verb. phr. (old: now vulgar).—To hold one’s tongue; to compel silence; TO DRY UP (q.v.). Also SHUT YOUR NECK (MOUTH, HEAD, or FACE; SHUT-UP! or SHUT IT!): Fr. ferme ta boîte. Hence, TO BE SHUT UP = to be silenced, exhausted, or done for.
1563. FOXE, Acts and Monuments [CATTLEY], viii. 216. I have SHUT UP your lips with your own book.
c. 1570. GASCOIGNE, Poems [CHALMERS, English Poets, ii. 571]. Beautie SHUT UP THY SHOP [mouth].
1605. SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, v. 3, 155.
| Alb. SHUT YOUR MOUTH, dame, | |
| Or with this paper shall I stop it. |
1614. JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, v. 3. Hold thy peace, thy scurrility, SHUT UP THY MOUTH.
1856. H. B. STOWE, Dred, I. xxiii. This is the Lord’s ground, here; so SHUT UP your swearing, and don’t fight.
1857. DICKENS, Little Dorrit, I. xiii. It SHUTS THEM UP. They haven’t a word to answer.
1858. A. MURSELL, Lecture on Slang. When a man speaks, he ‘spouts’; when he holds his peace, he ‘SHUTS UP.’
1865. Fun, 29 July, ‘English Undefiled.” I sigh, “Carina! how I suffer; Be thou my Juliet! Be my queen!” She only says, “SHUT UP, you duffer!”
1877. JOWETT, Plato, III. 6. A mere child in argument, and unable to foresee that the next “move” (to use a Platonic expression) will SHUT HIM UP.
1886–96. MARSHALL, Pomes [1897], 54. Oh, SHUT IT! Close your mouth until I tell you when.
1888. J. RUNCIMAN, The Chequers, 80. SHET YOUR NECK.
1892. KIPLING, Barrack-Room Ballads, ‘The Young British Soldier.’ You SHUT UP your rag-box, an’ ’ark to my lay.
1895. R. POCOCK, The Rules of the Game, I. vi. “SHUT YOUR MOUTH,” he said, “or I’ll knife you!”
1896. CRANE, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, ix. ‘SHET YER FACE, an’ come home yeh old fool!’ roared Jimmie.
1897. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM, Liza of Lambeth, v. SHUT IT! she answered, cruelly. Ibid., xi. “SHUT UP!” said Jim…. “I shan’t SHUT UP.”
1901. Troddles & Us, 75. Murray’s pleasantry struck us as being untimely, and we told him to SHUT UP.
2. verb. (racing).—See quot.
18[?]. KRIK, Guide to the Turf. TO SHUT UP … to give up, as one horse when challenged by another in a race.
TO BE SHUT OF, verb. phr. (once literary: now vulgar).—To be rid of, freed from, quit of. As subs. (HALLIWELL) = a riddance.
1596. NASHE, Have with You to Saffron-Walden, To the Reader. And doo what I can, I shall not be SHUT OF him.
1639. MASSINGER, The Unnatural Combat, iii. 1.
| Stew. We are SHUT OF HIM, | |
| He will be seen no more here. |
1639. SHIRLEY, The Maid’s Revenge, ii. 2. Mont. Yes, we’ll bring him out of doors.—Would we were SHUT OF HIM!
1694. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Æsop, 200. We must not Pray in One Breath to Find a Thief, and in the Next to get SHUT OF him.
1847. W. T. THOMPSON, Chronicles of Pineville, 34. Never mind, doctor, we’ll GET SHUT OF him.
1848. GASKELL, Mary Barton, v. And as for a bad man, one’s glad enough to GET SHUT ON him.
1888. BOLDREWOOD, Robbery under Arms, ii. Father was one of those people that GETS SHUT OF a deal of trouble in this world by always sticking to one thing.
1891. R. L. STEVENSON, Kidnapped, 96. What we want is to be SHUT OF him.
1896. KIPLING, The Big Drunk Draf’. I niver knew how I liked the gray garron till I was SHUT AV him an’ Asia.
