Shutdown

How to spell shutdown

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shutdown

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shutdown mean?

1. nounA closing or stopping of operations, especially of a machine, factory, computer system, or government function.

Shutdown in a sentence

• The factory scheduled a complete shutdown for routine maintenance.

• A software update forced an unexpected shutdown of every workstation.

Where does shutdown come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound, built from two very old native words. 'Shut' descends from the Old English scyttan, meaning to bolt or fasten a door with a bar or sliding pin, while 'down' comes from the Old English dūne, a worn-down form of of dūne meaning 'off the hill' or 'downward'. The phrasal verb 'to shut down' was in use by the nineteenth century in the language of factories and machinery, describing the act of stopping operations and powering off equipment. By the early twentieth century writers began compressing the two words into the single noun 'shutdown' to name the event itself, the stopping of a plant, system, or process. The spelling trap is purely about spacing: the verb stays as two words ('we shut down the reactor'), but the noun and modifier are written solid as one ('a planned shutdown'), and confusing the two is the usual error.

How the word is built

• shut (close, from Old English scyttan)
• down (downward, from Old English dūne); a closed compound noun formed from the phrasal verb 'shut down'