Meanings
- idiomaticuncountableSomething unexceptional, not noteworthy or special.
You're welcome to stay here, but this hut ain't no great shakes for such as you.
1898, Gertrude Atherton, chapter XIX, in The Valiant Runaways, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, →OCLC, page 2103 more examples
His tactic of pointing out the flaws of the Democrats does not mean that the Republican Party is any great shakes, as he intimates.
1980 August 30, Patrice Keegan, “Ebersole Misses the Point”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 6, page 4The iPhone's 2.0 megapixel camera is no great shakes, but it's good enough as cellphone cameras go.
2008 August 24, “Your definitive guide to the iPhone”, in The Times, Johannesburg, South Africa, archived from the original on 15 Sep 2008Scotland began well and then slowly faded. Haiti were no great shakes but they were getting on top. Wasteful, but better than their heavily fancied opponents.
2026 June 14, Tom English, “Why Haiti v Scotland was antidote to the ills of world football”, in BBC SportSynonyms: comme ci comme ça, nothing to write home about, not worth writing home about
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSomething unexceptional, not noteworthy or special.
Cite this entry
no great shakes. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20great%20shakes
“no great shakes.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20great%20shakes. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “no great shakes,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/no%20great%20shakes.
Source: no great shakes on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.