Word.ws English Dictionary

shakedown

UK/ˈʃeɪkdaʊn/

shakedown noun: extortion, especially through blackmail.

Noun

shakedown (plural shakedowns)

  1. (slang) Extortion, especially through blackmail
    • What is this, a shakedown?
    • Four Thai police officers charged with murder in connection with the deadly shakedown of a suspected drug dealer in custody were arrested Wednesday after a video clip of the incident shared on social media caused a public furor.2021 August 25, Tassanee Vejpongsa, “Four Thai Police Charged in Drug Suspect’s Death After Video Surfaces”, in Bloomberg, Bloomberg, retrieved 25 Aug 2021
  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
    • "There's nowhere for me to lie down, sir," he answered, and there was in his voice a humbleness which was very distressing. -- "Don't you know anyone in the house who'll give you a shakedown?" -- "No, sir."1915, W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Adjective

shakedown

  1. That tests the performance of a ship or aircraft.

Forms of shakedown

pluralshakedowns
alternative formshake-down

Plural of shakedown: shakedowns

Origin of shakedown

Deverbal from shake down. An improvised bed would originally have been made by shaking down straw.

Questions about shakedown

What does shakedown mean?
Shakedown means extortion, especially through blackmail.
What part of speech is shakedown?
Shakedown can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce shakedown?
Shakedown is pronounced /ˈʃeɪkdaʊn/ (UK).
What is the plural of shakedown?
The plural of shakedown is shakedowns.

Words near shakedown in the dictionary

  1. shake-downs
  2. shake-up
  3. shake-ups
  4. shakeable
  5. shaked
  6. shakedown
  7. shakedowns
  8. shakefork
  9. shakeforks
  10. shakehand
  11. shakehole

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-shakedown.ogg.

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