shut out

plural shut outs

1. nonstandardNonstandard spelling of shutout.

present singular third person shuts out · participle present shutting out

1. transitiveTo prevent from entering; to block or exclude.

   His wife shut him out of his own house.

   4 more examples

   This triple-glazing shuts out the noise of the traffic.

   Open carriages tend to be draughty and inadequately heated. The passenger in them has no escape from the annoyance of squalling babies, boisterous drunks, and riotous teddy-boys, who may be at the far end of the coach but whose din cannot be shut out.

   1959 February 28, “Letters to the Editor: Open-Type Coaches on B.R.”, in Railway Magazine, page 135

   Fear, as a pre-teen, of being shut-out ^([sic]) from the activities in which other children were participating.

   1989 April 15, Connie Johnson, “Pre-Op TS Speaks Out”, in Gay Community News, page 5

   For generations, women were shut out of financial systems, denied access to bank accounts, credit, and the education to understand them.

   2026 April 22, Jillian Sanders, “The Danger of Surrendering Your Financial Independence in a Relationship”, in TIME, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2026

2. transitiveTo hide from sight.

   The high wall shut out the countryside beyond.

   2 more examples

   It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

   1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC

   Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

   1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016

3. transitiveTo refuse to be open and vulnerable toward.

   No! Why? Why do you shut me out? Why do you shut THE WORLD out?

   2013, Jennifer Lee, Frozen, spoken by Elsa (Idina Menzel)

4. hobbiesTo prevent from scoring; to perform a shutout.