shake

present singular third person shakes · participle present shaking · past shook · past rare shaked · past slang shooketh · participle past shaken · dialectal participle past shook · dialectal nonstandard participle past shooken

1. ergativetransitiveTo cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.

   The earthquake shook the building.

   2 more examples

   He shook the can of soda for thirty seconds before delivering it to me, so that, when I popped it open, soda went everywhere.

   Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and now seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.

   1963, Margery Allingham, “Meeting Point”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 232

2. transitiveTo move (one's head) from side to side, especially to indicate refusal, reluctance, or disapproval.

   Shaking his head, he kept repeating “No, no, no”.

   1 more example

   I became alſo a reproch vnto them: when they looked vpon me, they ſhaked their heads.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 109:25, column 1

3. To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion.

   to shake fruit down from a tree

   3 more examples

   The door finally shook free of its hinges.

   […]Shake off the golden ſlumber of repoſe;[…]

   c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   But indeed this Shame was a bold Villain; I could ſcarce ſhake him out of my company; [...]

   1680, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That which is to Come: […], 5th edition, Edinburgh: […] Iohn Cairns, […], →OCLC, page 70

4. transitiveTo disturb emotionally; to shock.

   He was shaken by what had happened.

   2 more examples

   Her father’s death shook her terribly.

   Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.

   2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845

   Synonyms: traumatize

5. idiomatictransitiveTo lose, evade, or get rid of (something).

   Nothing could shake his faith.

   1 more example

   I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something.

6. intransitiveTo move from side to side.

   She shook with grief.

   1 more example

   The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: shiver, tremble

7. intransitiveusuallyTo shake hands.

   OK, let’s shake on it.

8. intransitiveTo dance.

   She was shaking it on the dance floor.

9. transitiveTo give a tremulous tone to; to trill.

   to shake a note in music

10. figurativelytransitiveTo threaten to overthrow.

    The experience shook my religious belief.

    1 more example

    The story of Ms. He and her mother began in the early 1960s, shortly before the Cultural Revolution shook China.

    2014 January 20, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “‘She. Herself. Naked.': The Art of He Chengyao”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 Aug 2023, Sinosphere

11. figurativelyintransitiveTo be agitated; to lose firmness.

plural shakes

1. countableuncountableThe act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion.

   The cat gave the mouse a shake.

   1 more example

   She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.

2. countableplural normallyuncountableA twitch, a spasm, a tremor.

   And when the princely Perſean Diadem, Shall ouerweigh his wearie witleſſe head, And fall like mellowed fruit, with ſhakes of death, In faire Perſea noble Tamburlain Shall be my Regent, and remaine as King:

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i

3. countableuncountableusually preceded by definite articleA dance popular in the 1960s in which the head, limbs, and body are shaken.

   The snake did the frug, the monkey did the shake. The crowd, mostly young couples, tourists and kids, loved it.

   1969, Allen V. Ross, Vice in Bombay, London: Tallis Press, page 52

4. countableuncountableA milkshake.
5. countableuncountableA beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
6. countableuncountableShake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
7. USslanguncountableAn adulterant added to cocaine powder.

   […] most suppliers will allow up to 120 grams of shake to a kilo, or 12 percent; kilo-level buyers are usually unhappy if they find more.

   1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, page 35

8. countableuncountableA crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
9. countableuncountableA fissure in rock or earth.
10. countableuncountableA type of wooden shingle originally made from split timber.

    There is a comet's tail of spilled cream across the cedar shakes and he will have to climb down for the turpentine.

    2003, Janette Turner Hospital, Due Preparations for the Plague, A&R Classics, published 2014, page 4

11. countableinformaluncountableInstant, second. (Especially in two shakes.)

    “And do you realize that in a few shakes I've got to show up at dinner and have Mrs Cream being very, very kind to me? It hurts the pride of the Woosters, Jeeves.”

    1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XXI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

12. countableuncountablenauticalOne of the staves of a hogshead or barrel taken apart.

    Empty casks are[…]taken to pieces, and the staves closely packed up in a cylindrical form, constituting what are called shakes or packs

    1820, William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions

13. countableuncountableentertainmentA rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill.
14. countableuncountableentertainmentIn singing, notes (usually high ones) sung vibrato.

    A Signora Rossinuola, with the face of a goddess, and the voice of an angel, made her first curtsy that evening to the Neapolitans. She was received with the most rapturous applause. Nothing was heard of next day but her shake and her smile.

    1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 263

15. countableuncountableA shook of staves and headings.
16. UKcountabledialectaluncountableThe redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground.
17. countableuncountableA shock or disturbance.

    As long as I had seen Mr Holdsworth in the rooms at the little inn at Hensleydale, where I had been accustomed to look upon him as an invalid, I had not been aware of the visible shake his fever had given to his health.

    1864, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis

18. countablehistoricaluncountablenuclear physicsAn informal unit of time equal to 10 nanoseconds.

    Most of the fission energy was released in the last few generations, so if the device blew itself apart before about fifty-seven shakes had elapsed, […]

    2003, Ruth H. Howes, Caroline L. Herzenberg, Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project, page 97

plural Shakes

1. A surname.