Word: shake Part of Speech: noun 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. Pronunciation: /ˈʃeɪk/ 1. The act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The cat gave the mouse a shake. Example: She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head. 2. A twitch, a spasm, a tremor. Labels: countable, plural-normally, uncountable Example: 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: 3. A dance popular in the 1960s in which the head, limbs, and body are shaken. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The snake did the frug, the monkey did the shake. The crowd, mostly young couples, tourists and kids, loved it. 4. A milkshake. Labels: countable, uncountable 5. A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float. Labels: countable, uncountable 6. Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana. Labels: countable, uncountable 7. An adulterant added to cocaine powder. Labels: US, slang, uncountable Example: […] 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. 8. A crack or split between the growth rings in wood. Labels: countable, uncountable 9. A fissure in rock or earth. Labels: countable, uncountable 10. A type of wooden shingle originally made from split timber. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: There is a comet's tail of spilled cream across the cedar shakes and he will have to climb down for the turpentine. 11. Instant, second. (Especially in two shakes.) Labels: countable, informal, uncountable Example: “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.” 12. One of the staves of a hogshead or barrel taken apart. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: Empty casks are[…]taken to pieces, and the staves closely packed up in a cylindrical form, constituting what are called shakes or packs 13. A rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill. Labels: countable, uncountable 14. In singing, notes (usually high ones) sung vibrato. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: 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. 15. A shook of staves and headings. Labels: countable, uncountable 16. The redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground. Labels: UK, countable, dialectal, uncountable 17. A shock or disturbance. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: 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. 18. An informal unit of time equal to 10 nanoseconds. Labels: countable, historical, uncountable Example: 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, […]