Etymologically
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shake

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ʃeɪk/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English shaken, inherited from Old English sceacan (“to move quickly to and fro; to brandish; to tremble; to go, flee”),[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *skakaną (“to shake, swing; to escape”),[2][3] which also gave Old Saxon skakan “to depart” and Old Norse and Swedish skaka.[3][5][4] Barnhart sees no reliable cognate outside Germanic,[3] while others suggest PIE *(s)keg- “to jump, move”, comparing Sanskrit khajati “churns, agitates”.[2][5] Compare shock.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To vibrate, or make vibrate, and to move away: about 725, in Beowulf.[3][6] Old English also used it poetically for departing or fleeing.[6][2]

Semantic evolution

Of the ground in earthquakes it is from about 1300, and to seize and shake someone from the early 14th century.[2] From the late 14th century it meant to mix by shaking a container, and to weaken or impair, on the notion of making unstable.[2] To rid oneself of something by abrupt twists is from about 1200, and the colloquial shake off, to get rid of, by 1872 in American English.[2] The noun was a charge or onrush in the mid-14th century,[2][7] an act of shaking from 1581,[3][7] and the handshake by 1712.[2][7] A shake as a moment is by 1816, and two shakes of a lamb's tail from 1852.[2] A trill in music is also a shake.[2][8] The Shakers, an American sect that split off from the Quakers in the mid-18th century, were named from their ecstatic movements in worship.[6] Shaker is from 1440,[3] and shaky from the 18th century.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – to vibrate; to flee, in Beowulf.[3]
  • c. 1300 – of the earth in earthquakes.[2]
  • mid-14th century – the noun, an onrush.[2]
  • 1581 – an act of shaking.[3][7]
  • 1712 – a handshake.[2][7]
  • 1852 – two shakes of a lamb's tail.[2]
  • 1872 – to shake off, get rid of.[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To move, or make something move, quickly up and down or back and forth.
  2. To tremble, as from cold or fear.
  3. To grasp someone's hand in greeting or agreement.
  4. To upset or weaken: the news shook her.
  5. (shake off) To get rid of or escape from.

Noun

  1. An act of shaking.
  2. A milkshake.
  3. (music) A trill.
  4. (informal) A moment: in two shakes.

Word family

  • shakable
  • shaker
  • shook
  • world-shaking
  • ashake
  • reshake
  • shakeout
  • shaky
  • shock
  • shaken
  • milkshake
  • handshake

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin