Shawshank

Shawshank verb: to escape, especially by tunneling out or without warning.

Verb

Shawshank (third-person singular simple present Shawshanks, present participle Shawshanking, simple past and past participle Shawshanked)

To escape, especially by tunneling out or without warning.
- After endless Shawshanking through the ducts, I came to a grate that offered my first break from the horror show.2009, Kilt Kilpatrick, “Last Times at Ridgemont High”, in Lori Perkins, editor, Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page 314
- Kid up and disappears, Shawshanks like a fart in the wind.2012, Phil Brody, The Holden Age of Hollywood
To punish (someone) for something that they did not do.
- Jim hadn't, but he did agree to give us more time before he Shawshanked me.1997, Randi Reisfeld, Too Hottie to Handle, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 131
- Sorry you got Shawshanked, but it doesn't change anything.2015, Buffy: Season Nine Library Edition Volume 3, page 165
To accomplish something by doing a little bit at a time over a long period of time.
- I had just given notice at work that I was taking a leave and I wanted to start "Shawshanking" things home2020·, Gerry Ugalde, Dancing with Disease
- Easy, I shawshaked you.2022, Chris Tuff, Save Your Asks
To rape (a man, by a man) as an act of dominance and bullying.
- This isn't an act of love; he's basically getting Shawshanked by a long-necked bully.2022, Mamadou Ndiaye, 100 Animals That Can F*cking End You, page 107

Shawshank (plural Shawshanks)

A literal or figurative prison.
- We all have our Shawshanks. Some of us have broken free.2012, Vance Brown, No Matter the Cost, page 174
- […] the various walls men elect to live behind inside their own self-constructed Shawshanks, laboring under the debilitating belief that they have no other choice than to mirror the quiet desperation of their own experience (or their father's) by living in isolation.2016, Maura Grady, Tony Magistrale, The Shawshank Experience, page 130

Like the secret part of himself—the one he kept hidden and didn't let out so he could remain safe and intact—had Shawshanked itself and wasn't going to let it be captured again.2013, Maggie Robinson, Elyssa Patrick, Holiday for Two:
And nothing to scrape with, so we're not Shawshanking our way out.2021, Mary Hughes, Night's Bliss:
I could have been honest, said it was all a mistake and that I'd been shawshanked, but that hadn't won me any favors so far.2017, M.C. Cerny, The Warden:
It's like going to prison with an innocent conscience: he Shawshanked me real hard; and it was up to me to dig my way out to freedom.2022, Kathleen Ann Tia, The Naked Green Eyes, page 3:

Verb
third-person singular present	Shawshanks
present participle	Shawshanking
past participle	Shawshanked
past	Shawshanked
Noun
plural	Shawshanks

A reference to the 1982 novel Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King and its 1994 film adaptation The Shawshank Redemption.

What does Shawshank mean?: Shawshank means to escape, especially by tunneling out or without warning.
How do you use Shawshank in a sentence?: Like the secret part of himself—the one he kept hidden and didn't let out so he could remain safe and intact—had Shawshanked itself and wasn't going to let it be captured again.
What part of speech is Shawshank?: Shawshank can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of Shawshank?: The past tense of Shawshank is Shawshanked.

Adapted from Wiktionary: Shawshank (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: 2026-09-02

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