shake

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To move quickly back and forth or up and down.

   The earthquake shook the whole building.

2. 2
   verb

   To move your head from side to side, usually to say no.

   Shaking his head, he kept repeating "No, no, no."

3. 3
   verb

   To upset or shock someone emotionally.

   Her father's death shook her terribly.

4. 4
   verb

   To get rid of someone or something following you.

   I couldn't shake the car that was following me.

Multiword verbs with shake

• shake off Phrasal verb A2

  to get rid of an unwanted feeling or condition

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Shake is an Old English word whose early senses included “tremble,” “make something vibrate,” and, poetically, “depart or flee.” Shaker, the name of a religious sect, arose from the ecstatic movements performed during its services, which led people to call its members the Shaking Quakers.

From Middle English schaken, from Old English sċeacan, sċacan (“to shake”), from Proto-West Germanic *skakan, from Proto-Germanic *skakaną (“to shake, swing, escape”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keg-, *(s)kek- (“to jump, move”). Cognate with Scots schake, schack (“to shake”), West Frisian schaekje (“to shake”), Dutch schaken (“to elope, make clean, shake”), Low German schaken (“to move, shift, push, shake”) and schacken (“to shake, shock”), Old Norse skaka (“to shake”), Norwegian Nynorsk skaka (“to shake”), Swedish skaka (“to shake”), Danish skage (“to shake”), Dutch schokken (“to shake, sho…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary