shakes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of shake.

   He blended three banana shakes for the kids after practice.

   A couple of firm shakes settled the powder evenly in the jar.

   Note

   An ordinary -s plural, used wherever shake counts as separate items: two banana shakes, a few firm shakes of the jar. Keep it apart from the trembling senses, which exist only as the shakes, with the article. The tremor meaning of shake already leans that way and normally appears in the plural, so a single 'shake' rarely names a tremor.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of shake.

   The old bridge shakes whenever a heavy truck crosses it.

   She shakes the dust from the rug on the back porch each morning.

   Note

   One present-tense form serves both sides of an ergative verb. In 'the house shakes', the thing itself moves; in 'he shakes the bottle', someone moves it. The idiomatic uses take the same ending: she shakes her head, he shakes off a pursuer. The identical spelling is also the noun plural, and the surrounding grammar tells motion from milkshakes.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialplural

   An episode of uncontrollable trembling or shivering.

   By morning the fever had given him a bad case of the shakes.

   Stage fright left her with the shakes minutes before the curtain rose.

   Similarjitters, shivers

   Note

   The everyday sense, with no addiction behind it: fever, cold or plain nerves can bring it on. Adeline Ginn, speaking in 2022, recalls having the shakes and asking herself 'why am I doing this?' as she faced the stage. Have is its usual verb, alongside get and 'a case of', and it sits comfortably in casual conversation.

4. 4
   nounslangplural

   Delirium tremens: severe trembling, confusion, and hallucinations brought on by alcohol withdrawal.

   By the third day of withdrawal, the shakes set in and he began seeing things.

   Nurses on the ward watched for the shakes in newly admitted drinkers.

   Note

   Drinkers' slang for a medical emergency: the word is always plural and nearly always takes the article. Someone gets the shakes or has the shakes, never a shake. Because it sounds casual, it can understate how dangerous withdrawal is, so delirium tremens is the safer term in clinical or formal writing. Context separates it from an ordinary fit of trembling, since the same phrase also covers nerves or cold.

5. 5
   nouncolloquialplural

   A set of twitches, tics, and spasms typical of withdrawal from an addiction.

   Counselors warned that the shakes would peak a few days after his last dose.

   The shakes gripped him every time he tried to give up the pills.

   Note

   The withdrawal sense has stretched well past drugs and drink. Reporting on recovering video game addicts lists the shakes beside sleep disorders and numb hands, and research on sugar-fed rats pairs it with teeth-chattering. It sits naturally in a list of symptoms, often after phrases like 'signs such as'. It is broader and milder than the delirium tremens meaning.

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