shutdown

• shut-down

Deverbal from shut down.

shutdown (countable and uncountable, plural shutdowns)

1. The action of stopping operations; a closing, of a computer, business, event, etc.

   You need to enter your password at startup, but it's not required at shutdown.

   There is a plastic molly-guard covering the escalator's shutdown button to prevent little kids from pushing it and stopping the escalator.

   • 2023 December 27, David Turner, “Silent lines...”, in RAIL, number 999, page 30:

     In 1963, there was even more of a shutdown [at Christmas]. The Western and London Midland Regions ran no trains, with the rest of the network having the "barest of skeleton services". The Daily Herald called Beeching's cuts "the most scrooge-like... in railway history".

2. A statement, insult, etc. that prevents the opponent from replying further.

   When he insulted me, my reply was such a shutdown that he left the room.

3. (psychology, autism) An autistic response to stress or sensory overload, in which the individual freezes up and becomes silent, motionless, and unresponsive.
   • 2018, Laura James, Odd Girl Out: My Extraordinary Autistic Life, unnumbered page:

     I retreated into myself and allowed myself to be swallowed into a typically autistic shutdown.

   • 2020, Siena Castellon, The Spectrum Girl's Survival Guide: How to Grow Up Awesome and Autistic‎, page 34:

     I may even reach the point where I have an autistic shutdown, which means I'll be unable to communicate, interact or socialize.

   • 2021, Carly Jones, Safeguarding Autistic Girls: Strategies for Professionals‎, pages 61–62:

     Their [autistic girls'] distress could come out in all sorts of ways and result in meltdown or shutdown.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:shutdown.

• (act of stopping operations): shuttering

• startup

• shutoff (noun)

• government shutdown

• → Japanese: シャットダウン (shattodaun)
• → Russian: шатда́ун (šatdáun)

• “shutdown”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “shutdown”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “shutdown”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “shutdown”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.