shimmy

/ˈʃɪ.mi/

shimmy noun: a dance move involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately.

Noun

shimmy (plural shimmies)

A dance move involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately.
- What is certain, however, is that the president-elect’s signature shimmy is currently en vogue with all manner of professional athletes, imitated by at least five National Football League players on Sunday, […].2024 November 18, Jesse McKinley, “Trump’s Signature Dance Move Finds Its Way to the Sports World”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
A dance that was popular in the 1920s.
- The tango, the Texas Tommy, Walking the Dog, the one step, the fox trot, the shimmy, and all their out-growths, had their origin in the palaces of lust on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.1930, Jefferis & Nichols, Safe Counsel or Practical Eugenics, page 200
An abnormal vibration, especially in the wheels of a vehicle.
(rare) A sleeveless chemise.

shimmy (third-person singular simple present shimmies, present participle shimmying, simple past and past participle shimmied)

To perform a shimmy (dance movement involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately).
- She wondered would he think her awful, and try to get fresh if she shimmied. Fellows often did. But he was so cute. And a girl had to something about that, and if she didn't shimmy, she might do something worse.1934, James T. Farrell, chapter 13, in The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan
To climb something (e.g. a pole) gradually (e.g. using alternately one's arms then one's legs).
- He shimmied up the flagpole.
- The static made her dress shimmy up her leg.
Synonyms:

shinny, shin
(intransitive) To vibrate abnormally, as a broken wheel.
- They came in among earth-moving machines, a total absence of trees, the usual hieratic geometry, and eventually, shimmying for the sand roads, down in a helix to a sculptured body of water named Lake Inverarity.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 37
(intransitive, rare) To shake the body as if dancing the shimmy.
(intransitive) To move across a narrow ledge, either by hanging from it or by strafing on it along the wall.
- Jump up to the ledge on your right and shimmy around the corner.2009, Allison Schubert, Lunabean.com's Videogame Guides of 2008: Adventure 3-Pack
- Climb on top of the room and drop down to shimmy along its back ledge.1999, Prima Development, The Big PlayStation Book

சிம்பான

I'm going to shimmy up to those rails above the park and try to grab some air.
She shimmies up the tamarind tree to watch the sistersʼ progression with undisguised raptness.
The waiter boogied back with the drinks and did a little shimmy before he boogied off.

Noun
plural	shimmies
Verb
third-person singular present	shimmies
present participle	shimmying
past participle	shimmied
past	shimmied

A back-formation from chemise (mistaken for a plural).

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does shimmy mean?: Shimmy means a dance move involving thrusting the shoulders back and forth alternately.
What is shimmy in Tamil?: Shimmy in Tamil is சிம்பான. See Shimmy meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is shimmy?: Shimmy can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce shimmy?: Shimmy is pronounced /ˈʃɪ.mi/.
What is the plural of shimmy?: The plural of shimmy is shimmies.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shimmy (page history and authors); shimmy (Tamil Wiktionary) (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

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shimmy.wav.

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