shutter
noun
- hinged panel
- camera component
verb
- close or obscure from view
- to close down
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈʃʌtəː/ / [ˈʃʰʌ̹tʰəː] / /ˈʃʌtɚ/
name
Etymology: Two main origins: * Occupational surname for a marksman, from an agent derivative of Middle English shoten (“to shoot”). * An Americanized spelling of Schutter.
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: From shut + -er. Compare shuttle.
- One who shuts or closes something.
“the openers and shutters of the sluices we believe are basic to the history of mind”
“The volunteers consisted of a ringmaster, two experienced young cattlemen to grade the cattle, gate-openers and shutters[…]”
- Each of a series of protective panels, usually wooden, placed over windows to block out the light.
- 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.”
“‘I can remember his body coming home, on a shutter I suppose, just as I was going down to tea […].’”
- The part of a camera, normally closed, that opens for a controlled period of time to let light in when taking a picture.
- 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.”
- A 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.”
verb
Etymology: From shut + -er. Compare shuttle.
- To close shutters covering.
“Shutter the windows: there's a storm coming!”
- To close up (a building) for a prolonged period of inoccupancy.
“It took all day to shutter the cabin now that the season has ended.”
- To cancel or terminate.
“The US is seeking to get Iran to shutter its nuclear weapons program.”
“This company was shuttered in 2002.”
- To rain heavily.
“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.”
“It's a bastard of a day, shuttering rain, but I can still shape up the hills off in the distance.”