shut the door

present singular third person shuts the door · participle present shutting the door

1. figurativelyTo refuse to consider, remember, accept, or engage in.

   Let's shut the door on conflict.

   1983, Anthony C. Yu, Journey to the West, Volume 2, →ISBN, page 140

   5 more examples

   Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no longer shut the door on science.

   1907, Mark Twain, Christian Science, Appendix A

   But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on this vista of argument.

   1910, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, chapter 46, in What's Wrong With The World

   [H]e pulled off his peasant clothes covered with the dust and dirt of that immediate life, washed himself, put on his "noble court dress," closed the door on the world of toiling and getting, private loving, private hating and personal regrets, sat down with a sigh of contentment to those wider dreams.

   1911, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 1, in The New Machiavelli, London: John Lane; The Bodley Head […], →OCLC

   But while Gore has not entirely shut the door on another run for President, he insists that he is "not planning" to be a candidate again.

   2006 April 30, Karen Tumulty, “Al Gore”, in Time

   Yet Tressel didn't slam the door on the possibility that Wells might still play in Saturday's game against Ohio University.

   2008 September 2, Rusty Miller, “Tressel reassures Buckeyes fans on Wells”, in USA Today, retrieved 27 Jun 2011

   Synonyms: close the door, slam the door

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shut, the, door.