shake

verb shakes · shaking · shook · shaked · shooketh · shaken

1. ergative, transitive To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly. The earthquake shook the building.
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. 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.

   Similar: traumatize

5. idiomatic, 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.

   Similar: shiver, tremble

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. figuratively, transitive To threaten to overthrow. The experience shook my religious belief.
11. figuratively, intransitive To be agitated; to lose firmness.

Similar: jiggle, quake, shag, shake, tremble, vibrate, wiggle

noun shakes

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 countable, uncountable A type of wooden shingle originally made from split timber.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

proper noun Shakes

1. A surname.