shut up!

Preserved but no longer current.

Meaning · English

Be quiet, don’t make a noise; to stop short, to cease in a summary manner, to silence effectually. The following is from a literary paper:—"Only the other day we heard of a preacher who, speaking of the scene with the doctors in the Temple, remarked that the Divine disputant completely SHUT THEM UP!" SHUT UP, utterly exhausted, done for.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

im lặng, đừng làm ồn; ngừng lại, ngừng một cách tóm tắt, im lặng hiệu quả

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1874 (Victorian)

Where it’s used: Origin British & Irish English
Sources & notes

Historical definition reproduced from Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary (1874, public domain; Project Gutenberg #42108, retrieved 2026-07-31). Reflects the attitudes of its era.

Common questions

What does “shut up!” mean?

Be quiet, don’t make a noise; to stop short, to cease in a summary manner, to silence effectually. The following is from a literary paper:—"Only the other day we heard of a preacher who, speaking of the scene with the doctors in the Temple, remarked that the Divine disputant completely SHUT THEM UP!" SHUT UP, utterly exhausted, done for.

Is “shut up!” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.