shutter

plural shutters

1. One who shuts or closes something.

   the openers and shutters of the sluices we believe are basic to the history of mind

   1980, Max Scheler, translated by Manfred S. Frings, Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge

   1 more example

   The volunteers consisted of a ringmaster, two experienced young cattlemen to grade the cattle, gate-openers and shutters[…]

   1958, Blackwood's Magazine

2. plural normallyEach of a series of protective panels, usually wooden, placed over windows to block out the light.
3. A similar screen used as an improvised stretcher to carry someone wounded or sick.

   [T]he other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter.

   1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   ‘I can remember his body coming home, on a shutter I suppose, just as I was going down to tea […].’

   1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter XI, in The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC

4. artsThe part of a camera, normally closed, that opens for a controlled period of time to let light in when taking a picture.
5. Any other opening and closing device.

   A service hatch with sliding shutter is situated at the end of the kitchen next to the dining compartment. […] A shutter, in three parts, is fitted, which when lowered completely encloses the bar.

   1950 June, “New Restaurant and Buffet Cars, G.N.R.(I.)”, in Railway Magazine, pages 415, 416

6. businessA panel used to contain freshly poured concrete, which is usually removed when the concrete hardens.

   The vertical wall was poured in two lifts, using two pairs of steel shutters which were bolted tightly onto 9-in. long wooden spacers.

   1959 December 28, Richard Hope, “Narrow Gauge Landslip”, in Railway Magazine, page 866

   Synonyms: shuttering

present singular third person shutters · participle present shuttering · participle past shuttered · past shuttered

1. transitiveTo close shutters covering.

   Shutter the windows: there's a storm coming!

2. figurativelytransitiveTo close up (a building) for a prolonged period of inoccupancy.

   It took all day to shutter the cabin now that the season has ended.

3. transitiveTo cancel or terminate.

   This company was shuttered in 2002.

   3 more examples

   The US is seeking to get Iran to shutter its nuclear weapons program.

   It has been a dithery decade for nuclear policy. After the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, several countries began shuttering their reactors and tearing up plans for new ones.

   December 15 2022, Samanth Subramanian, “Dismantling Sellafield: the epic task of shutting down a nuclear site”, in The Guardian

   After some additional legal wrangling, Morse, exhausted and out of money, withdrew his remaining appeals and shuttered the production in April 1883.

   2015, Henry Bial, Playing God: The Bible on the Broadway Stage, page 3

4. To rain heavily.

   It's a bastard of a day, shuttering rain, but I can still shape up the hills off in the distance.

   2009 February 5, Ross Raisin, God's Own Country, Penguin UK, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Mollie Wilson was a teenager living with her parents in Donaghmore in Tyrone, Northern Ireland [and said this]: 3rd September [1939] When Chamberlain made his declaration of war, there was violent thunder and lightning and rain shuttered down. I had always trusted rain too.

   2011 November 30, Carol Harris, Mike Brown, Blitz Diary: Life Under Fire in the Second World War, The History Press, →ISBN, page 1

   ... looked at the rain shuttering down outside and thought about the Fosters. He had been a perfect gentleman , although rather old and pernickety and set in his ways, but[…]

   2014 July 1, Julian Symons, The Man Whose Dream Came True, House of Stratus, →ISBN, page 210

plural Shutters

1. A surname.