shutdown

From the verb phrase shut down.

shutdown (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.

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) 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.

• startup

• government shutdown

• shut down

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

• “shutdown”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “shutdown”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• “shutdown”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “shutdown” in the Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.