Word.ws English Dictionary

shakes hands

shakes hands is the third-person singular simple present indicative of shake hands.

Meaning of shake hands

Verb

shake hands (third-person singular simple present shakes hands, present participle shaking hands, simple past shook hands, past participle shaken hands)

  1. To grasp another person's hands as an expression of greeting, farewell, agreement, etc.
    • Gerald was enthusiastic. After a while they shook hands, it being time to separate. And for a long time Selwyn sat there alone in the visitors' room, absent-eyed, facing the blazing fire of cannel coal.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter II, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
  2. (figuratively) To part, to say farewell.
    • ⁠But thou and I have shaken hands,
      ⁠Till growing winters lay me low;
      ⁠My paths are in the fields I know,
      And thine in undiscover’d lands.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXIX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 61

See all 3 meanings of shake hands

Questions about shakes hands

What is shakes hands the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Shakes hands is the third-person singular simple present indicative of shake hands.

Words near shakes hands in the dictionary

  1. Shakerlike
  2. shakers
  3. shakes
  4. shakes a leg
  5. shakes down
  6. shakes hands
  7. shakes in one's boots
  8. shakes in one's shoes
  9. shakes it
  10. shakes it up
  11. shakes like a leaf

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shakes hands (page history and authors); shake hands (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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