Shook

How to spell shook

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shook

What does shook mean?

1. verbPast tense of shake: moved something quickly back and forth, or trembled.
2. adjectiveInformal: emotionally shaken, startled, or upset by something.

Shook in a sentence

• verb

  She shook the bottle hard before pouring the juice.

• adjective

  She was visibly shook after the near miss on the motorway.

• verb

  The old bus shook violently as it crossed the bridge.

• adjective

  The whole team felt shook when the layoffs were announced.

Where does shook come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'shake', which descends from the Old English scacan, meaning to move something vigorously back and forth or to brandish it. The word belongs to a class of Germanic 'strong' verbs that mark the past tense by changing the vowel inside the word rather than by adding an ending, the same pattern that gives us 'take' and 'took' or 'forsake' and 'forsook'. That vowel switch, from the 'ay' sound in shake to the 'oo' sound in shook, is exactly why the spelling drops the silent 'e' and doubles up on 'oo'. Related forms appear across the older Germanic languages, including Old Norse and Dutch cousins that all described shaking or trembling movement. In modern informal English shook has also been revived as an adjective meaning deeply shaken or rattled, a usage that grew popular in the early twenty-first century.

How the word is built

• shak- (Old English scacan: to move briskly) with vowel change to shook for the past tense