shook

Formsshooks, shooking, shooked

Pluralshooks

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of shake.

   He shook hands with every guest at the door.

   The dog shook water all over the kitchen floor.

   Note

   The everyday past of shake carries every meaning of that verb. She shook the rug, he shook his head, the thief shook off his pursuers, the news shook them all. After have or be, careful writing switches to shaken. Using shook in that position is the informal habit described under the participle use.

2. 2
   verbcolloquial

   Past participle of shake. Informal and nonstandard; the standard form is shaken.

   He had shook the dust from his boots before coming inside.

   We've shook on the deal, so it's settled.

   Note

   Once a perfectly respectable participle. Shakespeare's Richard II asks to be excused "before I haue shooke off the Regall thoughts," and The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson (1806) speaks of councils that "have shook the throne." Today had shook and have shook sound casual. In formal writing, use shaken: he had shaken the dust from his boots.

3. 3
   adjectiveslang

   Rattled or shocked; left feeling unsettled after something sudden or surprising.

   The whole crowd was shook when the singer collapsed mid-song.

   He came out of the meeting visibly shook by the news.

   Similarshocked, stunned, spooked

   Oppositeunfazed, calm

   Note

   Slang that turns the old participle into a state of mind, usually announced in the first person: "I'm shook." It follows be, and it covers surprise as readily as alarm. A glowing write-up can leave someone just as shook as bad news. It takes more shook and most shook. Keep it to casual talk; shaken or rattled does the job in formal writing.

4. 4
   adjectiveslang

   Emotionally upset, disturbed, or frightened.

   She was too shook to talk about the accident for days.

   The threatening message left him genuinely shook.

   Similarupset, spooked, scared

   Oppositecalm, composed

   Note

   Here the jolt lingers as fear or distress rather than passing as surprise. Context is the only way to tell this apart from the surprised sense. Someone too shook to talk for days is frightened or upset, while an "I'm shook!" at good news is astonishment. The register warning is the same for both: slang, best left out of anything formal.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A set of prepared wooden pieces, packed flat, for assembling a cask or box.

   The cooper unpacked the shook and began fitting the staves together.

   Merchants shipped their barrels as shooks to save room in the hold.

   Note

   A word from the world of barrels and crates, and possibly a cousin of shock in its farming sense, a bundle of sheaves: both name loose pieces gathered into one bundle. It forms the regular plural shooks. Despite the spelling, it has no connection with the past of shake, which comes from a different word entirely.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The parts of a piece of furniture, such as a bedstead, packed together for transport.

   The carpenter delivered the bedstead as a shook to fit it through the narrow stairs.

   Two shooks of furniture parts were stacked by the door.

   Similarkit

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To pack staves or similar parts into a shook, the bundled set of pieces for making a cask or box.

   It was cheaper to shook the staves than to ship finished casks.

   Dock crews must shook the parts tightly to keep them from shifting at sea.

   Similarbundle, pack

   Note

   A packing verb made from the noun for cask parts, and fully regular: one worker shooks the staves, a crew is shooking them, and yesterday they shooked them. Its base form is spelled exactly like the past of shake, so context does the work; this verb's own past is always shooked. The noun behind it may be kin to shock, a bundle of sheaves.

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