SHUT OUT

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does shut out mean? 

• SHUT OUT (verb)
  The verb SHUT OUT has 1 sense:

1. prevent from entering; shut out

  Familiarity information: SHUT OUT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHUT OUT (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Prevent from entering; shut out

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

exclude; keep out; shut; shut out

Context example:

This policy excludes people who have a criminal record from entering the country

Hypernyms (to "shut out" is one way to...):

keep; prevent (stop (someone or something) from doing something or being in a certain state)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "shut out"):

curse; excommunicate; unchurch (exclude from a church or a religious community)

lock out (prevent employees from working during a strike)

ostracise; ostracize (avoid speaking to or dealing with)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

Beyond, the plain sloped down to a thick wood, while further to the left a second wood shut out the view.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We clapped our hands to our ears to shut out that nerve-shaking appeal.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sadly small party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out every other care, or almost every other.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It was almost dark under the trees, for the branches shut out the daylight; but the travelers did not stop, and went on into the forest.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

How I had a grasping, avaricious wish to shut out everybody from her but myself, and to be all in all to her, at that unseasonable time of all times.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Indeed I think it quite melancholy to have such excellent people as Dr and Mrs Shirley, who have been doing good all their lives, wearing out their last days in a place like Uppercross, where, excepting our family, they seem shut out from all the world.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Her avocations above having shut out all noise but what she created herself, she knew not that a visitor had arrived within the last few minutes, till, on entering the room, the first object she beheld was a young man whom she had never seen before.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)