Word.ws English Dictionary

shake-down

shake-down is the alternative spelling of shakedown.

Meaning of shakedown

Noun

shakedown (plural shakedowns)

  1. (slang) Extortion, especially through blackmail
    • What is this, a shakedown?
  2. (slang) A thorough search; a frisk
  3. A trial or test period, especially of a ship or aircraft.
    • It was planning to use an '807' for one day only as part of a shakedown test, ahead of the fleet's formal entry to service which is currently planned for November.2024 October 30, “Network News: Avanti prepares for Class 807s to enter traffic”, in RAIL, number 1021, page 12
  4. An improvised bed.
    • All sorts of gossip floated about; one story told was that a selector, and not the youngest of that staid and sober party, was found putting his boots into his shakedown at night, and lying outside the entrance of his tent, giving careful directions to some one to call him in time for the morning...1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 79

See all 5 meanings of shakedown

Forms of shake-down

pluralshake-downs

Origin of shake-down

Deverbal from shake down.

Questions about shake-down

What is shake-down the alternative spelling of?
Shake-down is the alternative spelling of shakedown.

Words near shake-down in the dictionary

  1. shake together
  2. shake up
  3. shake-a-leg
  4. shake-and-bake
  5. shake-and-bakes
  6. shake-down
  7. shake-downs
  8. shake-up
  9. shake-ups
  10. shakeable
  11. shaked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shake-down (page history and authors); shakedown (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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