shake
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shake", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "shake" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "shake" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shake is aEnglishverb. It means: To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly. Pronounced /ˈʃeɪk/. It ranks #4,121 in English word frequency. Often confused with she and shoe.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shake |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈʃeɪk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #4,121 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shake is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʃeɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,121 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for shake, with forms such as "hsake", "sahke", and "shaek". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "she", "shoe", "shaw", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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,… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is shake, spelled S-H-A-K-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.
- 2To move (one's head) from side to side, especially to indicate refusal, reluctance, or disapproval.
- 3To move or remove by agitating; to throw off by a jolting or vibrating motion.
- 4To disturb emotionally; to shock.
- 5To lose, evade, or get rid of (something).
- 6To move from side to side.
- 7To shake hands.
- 8To dance.
- 9To give a tremulous tone to; to trill.
- 10To threaten to overthrow.
- 11To be agitated; to lose firmness.
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsake,sahke,shaek,shakke,shhake,shkae,sshake
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shake
Misspelling Variants of "shake"
Frequency rank: #4,121 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: