Shaker

How to spell shaker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shaker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shaker mean?

1. nounA container with a perforated top used to sprinkle a substance, or one sealed for mixing drinks.
2. nounA person or thing that shakes something.

Shaker in a sentence

• The salt shaker on the table was nearly empty.

• The machine works as a shaker that settles the powder evenly in each box.

• The bartender poured the cocktail from a steel shaker.

• The dog was a vigorous shaker after every bath.

Where does shaker come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word built on the verb 'shake', which descends from Old English 'sceacan', meaning to move quickly to and fro or to brandish. That verb traces back to a Germanic root shared with words in Dutch and the older Scandinavian languages, all carrying the sense of agitated, rapid movement. The agent suffix '-er', also of Old English origin, was attached to turn the verb into a noun for the person or instrument that performs the action, exactly as 'bake' becomes 'baker' and 'mix' becomes 'mixer'. The container sense, a vessel you shake to sprinkle salt or to blend a drink, grew naturally from this and was well established by the 1800s. Because the spelling simply stacks the familiar verb onto a familiar suffix, the only mild trap is remembering that the silent final 'e' of 'shake' is dropped before '-er'.

How the word is built

• shake (to move briskly back and forth)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: the thing that does the action)