pipe down

verb

1. informal.
   intr, adverb to stop talking, making noise, etc

Idioms and Phrases

Stop talking, be quiet, as in I wish you children would pipe down . This idiom is also used as an imperative, as in Pipe down! We want to listen to the opera . It comes from the navy, where the signal for all hands to turn in was sometimes sounded on a whistle or pipe. By 1900 it had been transferred to more general use.

Example Sentences

The same rocket that killed the others had brought a heavy pipe down on his own leg, smashing his left knee.

From BBC

Trump piped down and stayed in court, then held a news conference where he deplored the “nasty judge.”

From Seattle Times

The conversation escalated and Storm asked if she was going to go to jail if she didn’t pipe down, arguing that she was doing “what the Lord is telling me to do.”

From Los Angeles Times

His crews then had to build scaffolding and run flexible piping down to the field.

From Washington Post

Politico's Rachel Bade caught a rare break in McCarthy's otherwise stony facade when he "visibly shushed his members to pipe down."

From Salon

Related Words

• cut off
• gag
• muffle
• mute
• muzzle
• quash
• quell
• squelch
• stifle
• subdue
• suppress