shake
/ˈʃeɪk/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms shakes shaking shook shaked shooketh shaken shooken
- verb (transitive, ergative) To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly. “The earthquake shook the building.”
- verb (transitive) To move (one's head) from side to side, especially to indicate refusal, reluctance, or disapproval. “Shaking his head, he kept repeating “No, no, no”.”
- verb To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion. “to shake fruit down from a tree”
- verb (transitive) To disturb emotionally; to shock. “Her father’s death shook her terribly.”
- verb (transitive, idiomatic) To lose, evade, or get rid of (something). “I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something.”
- verb (intransitive) To move from side to side. “She shook with grief.”
- verb (intransitive, usually as "shake on") To shake hands. “OK, let’s shake on it.”
- verb (intransitive) To dance. “She was shaking it on the dance floor.”
- noun The act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion. “The cat gave the mouse a shake.”
- noun (usually in the plural) A twitch, a spasm, a tremor.
- noun (usually preceded by definite article) A dance popular in the 1960s in which the head, limbs, and body are shaken.
- noun A milkshake.
- noun A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
- noun Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
- noun (US, slang, uncountable) An adulterant added to cocaine powder.
- noun A crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
traumatize shiver tremble jiggle quake shag vibrate wiggle shingle milkshake milk shake trill handshake handshaking handclasp wag waggle agitate didder judder rock sway stimulate shake up excite stir shake off throw off escape from
Etymology
From Middle English schaken, from Old English sċeacan, sċacan (“to shake”), from Proto-West Germanic *skakan, from Proto-Germanic *skakaną (“to shake, swing, escape”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keg-, *(s)kek- (“to jump, move”).
Cognate with Scots schake, schack (“to shake”), West Frisian schaekje (“to shake”), Dutch schaken (“to elope, make clean, shake”), Low German schaken (“to move, shift, push, shake”) and schacken (“to shake, shock”), Old Norse skaka (“to shake”), Norwegian Nynorsk skaka (“to shake”), Swedish skaka (“to shake”), Danish skage (“to shake”), Dutch schokken (“to shake, shock”), Russian скака́ть (skakátʹ, “to jump”). More at shock.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To cause to move with quick or violent vibrations; to move rapidly one way and the other; to make to tremble or shiver; to agitate.
- verb Fig.: To move from firmness; to weaken the stability of; to cause to waver; to impair the resolution of. When his doctrines grew too strong to be shook by his enemies, they persecuted his reputation. Atterbury.
- verb To be agitated with a waving or vibratory motion; to tremble; to shiver; to quake; to totter.
- noun The act or result of shaking; a vacillating or wavering motion; a rapid motion one way and other; a trembling, quaking, or shivering; agitation.
Etymology [OE. shaken, schaken, AS. scacan, sceacan; akin to Icel. & Sw. skaka, OS. skakan, to depart, to flee. sq. root161. Cf. Shock, v.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shake”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details