shake

/ˈʃeɪk/

shake verb: to cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.

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 or (dialectal, nonstandard) shooken)

(ergative, transitive) 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.
(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”.
- 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
To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion.
- to shake fruit down from a tree
- The door finally shook free of its hinges.
(transitive) To disturb emotionally; to shock.
- Her father’s death shook her terribly.
- He was shaken by what had happened.
Synonyms:

traumatize
(idiomatic, transitive) To lose, evade, or get rid of (something).
- I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something.
- Nothing could shake his faith.
(intransitive) To move from side to side.
- She shook with grief.
- 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
(intransitive, usually) To shake hands.
- OK, let’s shake on it.
(intransitive) To dance.
- She was shaking it on the dance floor.
(transitive) To give a tremulous tone to; to trill.
- to shake a note in music
(figuratively, transitive) To threaten to overthrow.
- The experience shook my religious belief.
- 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
(figuratively, intransitive) To be agitated; to lose firmness.

Noun

shake (countable and uncountable, plural shakes)

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.
(plural-normally) A 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...
(usually preceded by definite article) A 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
A milkshake.
A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
(US, slang, uncountable) An 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
A crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
A fissure in rock or earth.
A 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
(informal) Instant, 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
One 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 packs1820, William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions

Show 6 more meaningsShow fewer meanings

A rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill.
In 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
A shook of staves and headings.
(UK, dialectal) The redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground.
A 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
(historical, nuclear physics) An 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

Proper noun capitalized: Shake

Shake (plural Shakes)

A surname.

shake meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

shake in Hindi

transitive: to cause to move: हिलाना hilānā
intransitive: to move from side to side: हिलना hilnā

shake in Tamil

transitive: to cause to move: ஆட்டு āṭṭu

shake in Marathi

to shake, totter, rock: डगमगणे ḍagmagṇe
to shake: हालणे hālṇe
to shake, to tremble: हलणे halṇe

shake in Urdu

to shake, swing, move around: ہلانا hilānā
to shake, jerk: جھٹکانا jhaṭkānā
shake, toss, jerk: جھٹک jhaṭak
to shake, be jerked: دھچکنا dhacaknā

More languagesFewer languages

shake in Bengali: ঝাঁকানো jhãkanō, কাঁপা kãpa, লড়া loṛa, নড়া noṛa
shake in Telugu: అల్లాడు allāḍu, తూలు tūlu, జవ్వాడు javvāḍu, చలించు caliñcu
shake in Malayalam: കുലുക്കുക kulukkuka, കുലുങ്ങുക kuluṅṅuka
shake in Kannada: ಕದಡು kadaḍu
shake in Punjabi: ਕੰਬਣਾ kambṇā, ਹਿੱਲਣਾ hillaṇā, ਛਲਕਾਉਣਾ chalkāuṇā
shake in Gujarati: થરથરવું thartharvũ, ખંખેરવું khaṅkhervũ, ધ્રૂજવું dhrūjvũ, હાલવું hālvũ
shake in Sanskrit: इङ्गति iṅgati, वे॒पय॑ति vepáyati
shake in Sinhala: සලනවා salanawā
shake in Assamese: লৰা lora, ঘোঁট ghü̃t, মথ
shake in Arabic: هَزَّ hazza
shake in Persian: تکاندن tekândan
shake in Thai: เขย่า kà-yào, สั่น sàn
shake in Vietnamese: lắc, lay, bắt tay, sinh tố
shake in Myanmar: ခါ hka, လှုပ် hlup

Examples of shake in a sentence

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:
[…]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. […]...
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, […]...

All 40 example sentences with shake

Synonyms of shake

All synonyms of shake

Forms of shake

Verb
third-person singular present	shakes
present participle	shaking
past	shook
past participle	shaken
past (rare)	shaked
past (slang)	shooketh
past participle (dialectal)	shook
past participle (nonstandard, dialectal)	shooken
Noun
plural	shakes
Proper noun
plural	Shakes

Past tense of shake: shook

Plural of shake: shakes

Origin of shake

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.

Words formed from shake

Words that rhyme with shake

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shake

What does shake mean?: Shake means to cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.
What is shake in Hindi?: Shake in Hindi is हिलाना (hilānā), हिलना (hilnā). See Shake meaning in Hindi.
How do you use shake in a sentence?: 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.
What part of speech is shake?: Shake can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce shake?: Shake is pronounced /ˈʃeɪk/.
What is the past tense of shake?: The past tense of shake is shook.

Words near shake in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shake.ogg.

Cite this entry: “shake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.