shake
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃeɪk/
rhymes: -eɪk
homophone: sheik
homophone: sheikh stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: shakes
Etymology: 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, shock”), Russian скака́ть (skakátʹ, “to jump”). More at shock.
Senses: examples: text: The cat gave the mouse a shake.
text: She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.
glosses: The act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion.
examples: text: And when the princely Perſean Diadem,
Shall ouerweigh his wearie witleſſe head,
And fall like mellowed fruit, with ſhakes of death,
In faire Perſea noble Tamburlain
Shall be my Regent, and remaine as King:
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i:
glosses: A twitch, a spasm, a tremor.
examples: text: The snake did the frug, the monkey did the shake. The crowd, mostly young couples, tourists and kids, loved it.
ref: 1969, Allen V. Ross, Vice in Bombay, London: Tallis Press, page 52:
qualifier: usually preceded by definite article
glosses: A dance popular in the 1960s in which the head, limbs, and body are shaken.
glosses: A milkshake.
glosses: A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
glosses: Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
examples: text: […] most suppliers will allow up to 120 grams of shake to a kilo, or 12 percent; kilo-level buyers are usually unhappy if they find more.
ref: 1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, page 35:
glosses: An adulterant added to cocaine powder.
qualifier: building material
glosses: A thin shingle.
glosses: A crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
glosses: A fissure in rock or earth.
glosses: A basic wooden shingle made from split logs, traditionally used for roofing etc.
examples: text: “And do you realize that in a few shakes I've got to show up at dinner and have Mrs Cream being very, very kind to me? It hurts the pride of the Woosters, Jeeves.”
ref: 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XXI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:
glosses: Instant, second. (Especially in two shakes.)
examples: text: Empty casks are[…]taken to pieces, and the staves closely packed up in a cylindrical form, constituting what are called shakes or packs
ref: 1820, William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: One of the staves of a hogshead or barrel taken apart.
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill.
examples: text: A Signora Rossinuola, with the face of a goddess, and the voice of an angel, made her first curtsy that evening to the Neapolitans. She was received with the most rapturous applause. Nothing was heard of next day but her shake and her smile.
ref: 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 263:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: In singing, notes (usually high ones) sung vibrato.
glosses: A shook of staves and headings.
glosses: The redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground.
examples: text: As long as I had seen Mr Holdsworth in the rooms at the little inn at Hensleydale, where I had been accustomed to look upon him as an invalid, I had not been aware of the visible shake his fever had given to his health.
ref: 1864, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis:
glosses: A shock or disturbance.
examples: text: Most of the fission energy was released in the last few generations, so if the device blew itself apart before about fifty-seven shakes had elapsed, […]
ref: 2003, Ruth H. Howes, Caroline L. Herzenberg, Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project, page 97:
qualifier: nuclear physics
glosses: An informal unit of time equal to 10 nanoseconds.
Derived terms: sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: brace of shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: camera shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: cup shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: Danbury shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: elbow shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: fair shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: fair shake of the sauce bottle
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: Gen Z shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: give one's head a shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: health shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in a brace of shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in a couple of shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in a few shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in two shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in two shakes of a cow's tail
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in two shakes of a dog's tail
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in two shakes of a duck's tail
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: in two shakes of a lamb's tail
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: microshake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: milkshake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: no great shakes
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: pea shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: protein shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shake hole
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shakemap
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shake map
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shake table
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shakeup
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shake-up
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: shimmy shake
sense: Terms derived from shake (noun)
word: Wuhan shake
Related terms: sense: crack or split in wood
word: knot