Word.ws English Dictionary

shook hands

shook hands is the simple past 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 shook hands

What is shook hands the simple past of?
Shook hands is the simple past of shake hands.

Words near shook hands in the dictionary

  1. shooing off
  2. shooings
  3. shook
  4. shook a leg
  5. shook down
  6. shook hands
  7. shook in one's boots
  8. shook in one's shoes
  9. shook it
  10. shook it up
  11. shook like a leaf

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shook 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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