shock

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch schokken (“to push, jolt, shake, jerk”) or Middle French choquer (“to collide with, clash”), from Old Dutch *skokkan (“to shake up and down, shog”), from Proto-Germanic *skukkaną (“to move, shake, tremble”). Of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *skakaną (“to shake, stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kek-, *(s)keg- (“to shake, stir”); see shake. Cognate with Middle Low German schocken (“collide with, deliver a blow to, move back and forth”), Old High German scoc (“a jolt, swing”), Middle High German schocken (“to swing”) (German schaukeln), Old Norse skykkr (“vibration, surging motion”), Icelandic skykkjun (“tremulously”), Middle English schiggen (“to shake”). Doublet of shog.

noun

1. A sudden, heavy impact.
   1. (figurative) Something so surprising that it is stunning.
   2. (psychology) A sudden or violent mental or emotional disturbance.
      A tremendous shock arises when a secret is discovered. 2005, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving, page 85
   3. (medicine) Electric shock, a sudden burst of electrical energy hitting a person or animal.
      But as was the case with pacemakers, external defibrillators were unwieldy, and the shocks they delivered—in the rare cases when patients were still conscious—were painful. 2018, Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: a History, page 173
   4. (psychology) A state of distress following a mental or emotional disturbance.
      Fans were in shock in the days following the singer's death.
   5. (medicine) Circulatory shock, a medical emergency characterized by the inability of the circulatory system to supply enough oxygen to meet tissue requirements.
   6. (physics) A shock wave.
      Several reflected shocks enter the bomb core in rapid succession, each helping to compress it to its maximum density.
2. (automotive, mechanical engineering) A shock absorber (typically in the suspension of a vehicle).
   If your truck's been riding rough, it might need new shocks.
   We're bonin' on the dark blocks / Wearin' out the shocks, wettin' up the dashboard clock 1993, “Back Seat (of My Jeep)”, in 14 Shots to the Dome, performed by LL Cool J
   At the rear, you'll find a single, centrally mounted shock, the now-familiar single-sided swingarm and BMW's Paralever shaft-drive system, which does away with most of a shafty's chassis-jacking bugaboos. 1994, Cycle World Magazine, volume 33, number 1, page 49
3. (mathematics) A discontinuity arising in the solution of a partial differential equation.
4. A chemical added to a swimming pool to moderate the chlorine levels.

adj

1. Causing intense surprise, horror, etc.; unexpected and shocking.
   His shock announcement rocked the tennis world.

verb

1. (transitive) To cause to be emotionally shocked; to cause (someone) to feel surprised and upset.
   The disaster shocked the world.
2. (transitive) To give an electric shock to.
3. (transitive) To subject to a shock wave or violent impact.
   Ammonium nitrate can detonate if severely shocked.
4. (obsolete, intransitive) To meet with a shock; to collide in a violent encounter.
5. (transitive) To add a chemical to (a swimming pool) to moderate the chlorine levels.
6. (geology, transitive) To deform the crystal structure of a stone by the application of extremely high pressure at moderate temperature, as produced only by hypervelocity impact events, lightning strikes, and nuclear explosions.
   It takes more than two gigapascals (two billion pascals) of pressure to shock quartz in this manner (for comparison, the atmosphere at sea level exerts a little over 100,000 pascals of pressure). 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 44

Etymology 2

Variant of shag.

noun

1. An arrangement of sheaves for drying; a stook.
   Cause it on shocks to be by and by set. 1557, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
   Behind the Master walks, builds up the Shocks.
2. (commerce, dated) A lot consisting of sixty pieces; a term applied in some Baltic ports to loose goods.
3. (by extension) A tuft or bunch of something, such as hair or grass.
   His head boasted a shock of sandy hair.
   On day three I pointed at the edge of an intricate pentagram peeking above her shock of oily black hair. 2019, Hal Y. Zhang, Hard Mother, Spider Mother, Soft Mother, Brooklyn, NY: Radix Media, page 2
4. (obsolete) A small dog with long shaggy hair, especially a poodle or spitz; a shaggy lapdog.
   When I read of witty persons, I could not figure them but like the little shock. (translating the German Spitz) 1827, Thomas Carlyle, The Fair-Haired Eckbert

verb

1. (transitive) To collect, or make up, into a shock or shocks; to stook.
   to shock rye