put up or shut up
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put up or shut up
To take action or steps to resolve something that one dislikes or else stop complaining about it. You keep moaning that you don't have any meaningful friendships, but you don't do anything to try to form some. Either put up or shut up!
Put up or shut up!
1. Inf. a command to prove something or stop talking about it; Do something or stop promising to do it! I'm tired of your telling everyone how fast you can run. Now, do it! Put up or shut up! Now's your chance to show us that you can run as fast as you can talk. Put up or shut up!
2. Inf. a command to bet money in support of what one advocates. If you think that your horse is faster than mine, then make a bet. Put up or shut up! You think you can beat me at cards? Twenty bucks says you're wrong. Put up or shut up!
put up or shut up
Act on what you are saying or stop talking about it, as in You've been citing evidence for months but never presented it-now put up or shut up. This somewhat impolite term, often put as a command, is believed to come from gambling, in which a card player is told to ante up or withdraw. A second theory maintains that it means either put up your fists to fight or back down. [1870s] Also see put one's money where one's mouth is.
put up or shut up
INFORMALIf you say that someone should put up or shut up, you mean that they should either do something about a situation they are complaining about or stop complaining about it. If that person is not willing to change an unpleasant environment then they should simply get out of that environment, put up or shut up.
put up or shut up
defend or justify yourself or remain silent. informal 2003 New York Times Iraq's unexpected willingness to grant access to United Nations weapons inspectors presented American intelligence with a challenge to put up or shut up.
ˌput up or ˈshut up
(especially British English) used to tell somebody to stop just talking about something and actually do it, show it, etc: Come on, Scott. Put up or shut up. Let’s see how fearless you really are.Put up or shut up!
exclam. Speak now or remain silent for good! Now is your chance. Put up or shut up!
put up or shut up
Slang To have to endure (something unpleasant) without complaining or take the action necessary to remove the source of the unpleasantry.
put up or shut up
Back up your argument or keep quiet. This term, seemingly modern slang, actually dates from the nineteenth century. It may come from gambling, serving as a request to a player either to ante up or to withdraw. Or it may come from putting up one’s fists to fight. Mark Twain used it in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889): “This was a plain case of ‘put up or shut up.’” By then the phrase was so well known that it was sometimes abbreviated. Fred H. Hart had defined it in his Sazerac Lying Club: A Nevada Book (1878), “‘P.U. or S.U.’ means put up or shut up, doesn’t it?”