shake

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 shaka”), 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.

verb

1. (transitive, ergative) To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.
   The earthquake shook the building.
   He shook the can of soda for thirty seconds before delivering it to me, so that, when I popped it open, soda went everywhere.
2. (transitive) To move (one's head) from side to side, especially to indicate refusal, reluctance, or disapproval.
   Shaking his head, he kept repeating “No, no, no”.
3. (transitive) To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion.
   to shake fruit down from a tree
4. (transitive) To disturb emotionally; to shock.
   Her father’s death shook her terribly.
   He was shaken by what had happened.
   Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete. 2013-07-20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
5. (transitive) To lose, evade, or get rid of (something).
   I can’t shake the feeling that I forgot something.
6. (intransitive) To move from side to side.
   She shook with grief.
7. (intransitive, usually as "shake on") To shake hands.
   OK, let’s shake on it.
8. (intransitive) To dance.
   She was shaking it on the dance floor.
9. (transitive) To give a tremulous tone to; to trill.
   to shake a note in music
10. (transitive, figurative) To threaten to overthrow.
    The experience shook my religious belief.
    The story of Ms. He and her mother began in the early 1960s, shortly before the Cultural Revolution shook China. JANUARY 20, 2014, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “‘She. Herself. Naked.': The Art of He Chengyao”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-08-16, Sinosphere
11. (intransitive, figurative) To be agitated; to lose firmness.

noun

1. The act of shaking or being shaken; tremulous or back-and-forth motion.
   The cat gave the mouse a shake.
   She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.
2. (usually in the plural) A twitch, a spasm, a tremor.
3. A milkshake.
4. A beverage made by adding ice cream to a (usually carbonated) drink; a float.
5. Shake cannabis, small, leafy fragments of cannabis that gather at the bottom of a bag of marijuana.
6. (US, slang, uncountable) An adulterant added to cocaine powder.
   […] 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. 1989, Terry Williams, chapter 2, in The Cocaine Kids, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, page 35
7. (building material) A thin shingle.
8. A crack or split between the growth rings in wood.
9. A fissure in rock or earth.
10. A basic wooden shingle made from split logs, traditionally used for roofing etc.
11. (informal) Instant, second. (Especially in two shakes.)
12. (nautical) One of the staves of a hogshead or barrel taken apart.
    Empty casks are[…]taken to pieces, and the staves closely packed up in a cylindrical form, constituting what are called shakes or packs 1820, William Scoresby, An Account of the Arctic Regions
13. (music) A rapid alternation of a principal tone with another represented on the next degree of the staff above or below it; a trill.
14. (music) In singing, notes (usually high ones) sung vibrato.
15. A shook of staves and headings.
16. (UK, dialect) The redshank, so called from the nodding of its head while on the ground.
17. A shock or disturbance.
    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. 1864, Elizabeth Gaskell, Cousin Phillis