Meaning & use
shut your trap
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiominformalslang
A rude command telling someone to stop talking immediately.
Grammar: Imperative only: you can say shut your trap or tell someone to shut their trap.
Patterns
- tell someone to shut their trap
Shut your trap, I'm trying to hear the news.
He told his brother to shut his trap before he said something worse.
If you don't have anything useful to say, shut your trap.
Common combinations
- tell someone to shut their trap
- She told the heckler to shut his trap.
- just shut your trap
- Just shut your trap and listen for once.
- keep your trap shut
- Keep your trap shut about the surprise party.
- open your trap
- He only opens his trap to complain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- shut up
- Shut up is the more common rude command and is slightly less colorful than shut your trap.
- be quiet
- Be quiet is neutral and polite enough for any situation.
- hush
- Hush is gentle and often used to calm children.
- pipe down
- Pipe down is milder and sounds more playful than angry.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: shut your trap or shut up?
shut your trap vs shut up
Shut up has the same meaning but is more general; shut your trap specifically uses trap as slang for the mouth.
Practice
In the phrase shut your trap, what does trap refer to?
Choose one answer.
Trap is slang for mouth, so shut your trap tells someone to stop talking. The hunting meaning is the literal one but not used in this phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “shut your trap”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.