shake

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See also: Shake and shakë

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

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 shaka), 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.

Pronunciation

Verb

shake (third-person singular simple present shakes, present participle shaking, simple past shook or (rare) shaked or (slang) shooketh, past participle shaken or (dialectal) shook)

  1. (transitive, ergative) To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.
    The earthquake shook the building.
    He shook the can of soda for thirty seconds before delivering it to me, so that, when I popped it open, soda went everywhere.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Meeting Point”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 232:
      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.
  2. (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”.
  3. (transitive) To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion.
    to shake fruit down from a tree
  4. (transitive) To disturb emotionally; to shock.
    Synonym: traumatize
    Her father’s death shook her terribly.
    He was shaken by what had happened.
    • 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
      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.
  5. (transitive) To lose, evade, or get rid of (something).
    I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something.
  6. (intransitive) To move from side to side.
    Synonyms: shiver, tremble
    She shook with grief.
  7. (intransitive, usually as "shake on") To shake hands.
    OK, let’s shake on it.
  8. (intransitive) To dance.
    She was shaking it on the dance floor.
  9. (transitive) To give a tremulous tone to; to trill.
    to shake a note in music
  10. (transitive, figurative) To threaten to overthrow.
    The experience shook my religious belief.
    • 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 August 2023, Sinosphere‎:
      The story of Ms. He and her mother began in the early 1960s, shortly before the Cultural Revolution shook China.
  11. (intransitive, figurative) To be agitated; to lose firmness.

Derived terms

Terms derived from shake (verb)

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

shake (plural shakes)

  1. The act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion.
    The cat gave the mouse a shake.
    She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.
  2. (usually in the plural) A twitch, a spasm, a tremor.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First Part , 2nd edition, part 1, London: 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:
      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:
  3. A milkshake.
  4. A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
  5. Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
  6. (US, slang, uncountable) An adulterant added to cocaine powder.
    • 1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, page 35:
      [] 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.
  7. (building material) A thin shingle.
  8. A crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
  9. A fissure in rock or earth.
  10. A basic wooden shingle made from split logs, traditionally used for roofing etc.
  11. (informal) Instant, second. (Especially in two shakes.)
  12. (nautical) One of the staves of a hogshead or barrel taken apart.
    • 1820, William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions:
      Empty casks are [] taken to pieces, and the staves closely packed up in a cylindrical form, constituting what are called shakes or packs
  13. (music) A rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill.
  14. (music) In singing, notes (usually high ones) sung vibrato.
    • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Romance and Reality. , volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 263:
      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.
  15. A shook of staves and headings.
  16. (UK, dialect) The redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground.
  17. A shock or disturbance.
    • 1864, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis:
      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.

Derived terms

Terms derived from shake (noun)

Translations

See also

  • (crack or split in wood): knot

References

  1. ^ Tom Dalzell (ed.), The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English, New York: Routledge, 2009, p. 858.
  2. ^ Edward H Knight (1877), “Shake”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. , volume III (REA–ZYM), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton , →OCLC.

Anagrams

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English shake. First attested in 1966.

Noun

shake m (uncountable)

  1. shake (act of shaking or being shaken)
  2. (dance) shake (a type of dance)

Japanese

Romanization

shake

  1. Rōmaji transcription of しゃけ
  2. Rōmaji transcription of シャケ

Polish

Polish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia pl
shake

Alternative forms

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English shake.

Pronunciation

Noun

shake m inan

  1. milkshake, shake (milk and ice cream beverage)
    Synonym: koktajl mleczny

Declension

Further reading

  • shake in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish

Pronunciation

Noun

shake m (plural shakes)

  1. shake (drink)