Shoot

How to spell shoot

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shoot

What does shoot mean?

1. verbTo fire a weapon or projectile, or to move suddenly and swiftly.
2. nounA new growth on a plant, such as a young stem, bud, or sprout.
3. nounA session in which photographs are taken or film footage is recorded.

Shoot in a sentence

• verb

  The soldiers were trained to shoot only on command.

• noun

  A tender green shoot pushed through the soil after the rain.

• noun

  The magazine booked a fashion shoot on the beach at dawn.

• verb

  The striker had a clear chance to shoot at goal.

• noun

  Each bamboo shoot can grow several centimetres in a single day.

• noun

  The film shoot ran two weeks over schedule.

Where does shoot come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word descending from the Old English verb sceotan, which meant to dart, to throw, or to send something forth quickly. It belongs to a wider Germanic family, with close relatives such as the Dutch schieten and the German schiessen, all carrying the core idea of sudden, swift movement. The same root also gave English the words shot, shut, and sheet, since each involves something being launched, fastened, or stretched out rapidly. Over the centuries the meaning branched in many directions: a gun could shoot a bullet, a plant could shoot up new growth, and in the twentieth century a camera crew could shoot a film. The spelling keeps the doubled o that records its long vowel, and the trap for writers is its sound-alike partner chute, a French borrowing for a sliding channel, which sounds identical but has nothing to do with this Germanic verb.

How the word is built

• shoot (from Old English sceotan: to dart, to send forth swiftly), single native root with no affixes

Words that sound like shoot

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• chute: A sloping channel or passage down which objects, materials, or people can slide or drop.