English

Alternative forms

• close the door on
• slam the door on

Verb

shut the door on

1. (idiomatic, transitive) To refuse to consider, remember, accept, or engage in.
   • 1907, Mark Twain, Christian Science, Appendix A:

     Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no longer shut the door on science.

   • 1910, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World, ch. 46:

     But I believe I am justified in shutting the door on this vista of argument.

   • 1911, H. G. Wells, The New Machiavelli, ch. 1:

     [H]e pulled off his peasant clothes covered with the dust and dirt of that immediate life, washed himself, put on his "noble court dress," closed the door on the world of toiling and getting, private loving, private hating and personal regrets, sat down with a sigh of contentment to those wider dreams.

   • 1983, Anthony C. Yu, Journey to the West, Volume 2, ISBN 9780226971513, p. 140:

     Let's shut the door on conflict.

   • 2006 April 30, Karen Tumulty, "Al Gore," Time:

     But while Gore has not entirely shut the door on another run for President, he insists that he is "not planning" to be a candidate again.

   • 2008 Sep. 2, Rusty Miller, "Tressel reassures Buckeyes fans on Wells," USA Today (retrieved 27 June 2011):

     Yet Tressel didn't slam the door on the possibility that Wells might still play in Saturday's game against Ohio University.