Shaken

How to spell shaken

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shaken

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shaken mean?

1. verbThe past participle of shake: moved or agitated with quick back-and-forth motion.
2. adjectiveEmotionally disturbed, distressed, or unnerved by an upsetting experience.

Shaken in a sentence

• verb

  The bottle should be shaken well before each dose.

• adjective

  She felt deeply shaken after the near collision on the motorway.

• verb

  The old bridge had been shaken by years of heavy traffic.

• adjective

  The staff were visibly shaken by the sudden announcement.

Where does shaken come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Shaken is the past participle of the verb shake, which comes from the Old English sceacan, meaning to move quickly back and forth or to brandish. That verb belonged to the strong class of Germanic verbs, the group that forms its past tense by changing the internal vowel and its participle by adding an -en ending, the same pattern seen in taken, broken, and spoken. The root has cousins across the old Germanic tongues, including the Old Norse skaka, and it has carried the sense of trembling, brandishing, or rattling for well over a thousand years. Over time the literal idea of physical agitation broadened into figurative use, so that a person could be shaken, meaning emotionally disturbed or unsettled. The spelling trap is mild but real: the -en ending sits on an unstressed schwa, so writers must remember it is shaken and not shaiken or shakin.

How the word is built

• shake (Old English sceacan: to move quickly to and fro)
• -en (past participle suffix)