Shoots

How to spell shoots

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shoots

What does shoots mean?

1. verbThird-person singular present of shoot: fires a weapon, propels something forward, or captures images.
2. nounYoung stems or new growths that emerge from a plant or seed.

Shoots in a sentence

• verb

  The striker shoots from outside the penalty area whenever he gets space.

• noun

  Tender green shoots push up through the soil every spring.

• verb

  The photographer shoots in low light without using a flash.

• noun

  The gardener trimmed the fresh shoots on the rose bush.

Where does shoots come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a form of the verb and noun 'shoot', which descends from the Old English sceotan, meaning 'to dart out', 'to rush', or 'to send a missile flying'. That verb has solid Germanic roots, with close cousins in Dutch schieten and German schiessen, all carrying the basic idea of swift forward motion. The botanical meaning, a young stem darting up out of the soil, grew naturally from the same sense of something shooting outward and upward. Over time the word gathered the sporting senses (firing a weapon, propelling a ball at goal) and the photographic one (taking a sequence of pictures). The spelling trap is mostly the homophone 'chutes': a chute (a sloping channel) sounds identical but comes from the French word for a fall, so the contexts keep them apart.

How the word is built

• shoot (Old English sceotan: to dart, propel)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb ending)