Definition of "shoot"

shoot¹

/ʃuːt/

verb
third-person singular simple present shoots, present participle shooting, simple past shot, past participle shot or (rare) shotten
1. To launch a projectile.
  1. (transitive) To fire (a weapon that releases a projectile).
  2. (transitive) To fire (a projectile).
    Quotations
    If you please / To shoot an arrow that self way.
    c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]
  3. (transitive) To fire a projectile at (a person or target).
    Quotations
    The unfortunate Divisional Director, responsible for the Emperor's safety, shot himself.
    1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 252
    Shepard: She's surrounded by geth and pointing a gun at us. Shoot her!
    2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, PC, scene: Noveria
  4. (intransitive) To cause a weapon to discharge a projectile.
  5. (intransitive) To hunt birds, etc. with a gun.
    Quotations
    The place was called the House of More, and I had shot at it once or twice in recent years.
    1899 January – 1902 January, John Buchan, “(please specify the page)”, in The Watcher by the Threshold, and Other Tales, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1902
  6. (transitive) To hunt on (a piece of land); to kill game in or on.
    Quotations
    Although the estate had been shot previously, there had been no effective keepering and little success with the pheasants released.
    1969, Game Conservancy (Great Britain), Annual Review (issues 1-8, page 16)
  7. (gambling) To throw dice.
    Quotations
    Then, when it was his turn to shoot, he reached out with a completely empty hand and caught the dice the stickman threw to him.
    1980, John Scarne, Scarne on Dice, page 275
  8. (transitive, slang) To ejaculate.
  9. (intransitive, usually, as imperative) To begin to speak.
  10. (intransitive) To discharge a missile; said of a weapon.
  11. (transitive, figurative) To dismiss or do away with.
  12. (transitive, intransitive, analogous) To photograph.
    Quotations
    I had the pleasure of shooting Arnold Newman while teaching across the hall from him at a summer photo workshop.
    2006, Michael Grecco, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait, Amphoto Books, page 68
  13. (transitive, intransitive, analogous, film, television) To film.
  14. (transitive) To push or thrust a bolt quickly; hence, to open a lock.
    Quotations
    There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock.
    1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887
2. To move or act quickly or suddenly.
  1. (intransitive) To move very quickly and suddenly.
    Quotations
    There shot a streaming lamp along the sky.
    1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
    It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and landed on the side towards the Illinois shore.
    1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […]
    Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges[...]: or anon we shot into a clearing, with a colored glimpse of the lake and its curving shore far below us.
    1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
  2. To go over or pass quickly through.
    Quotations
    She […] shoots the Stygian sound.
    1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
    It was approaching the time when watermen would not shoot the bridge even without a passenger aboard.
    2005, R. G. Crouch, The Coat: The Origin and Times of Doggett's Famous Wager, page 40
  3. (transitive) To tip (something, especially coal) down a chute.
  4. (transitive) To penetrate, like a missile; to dart with a piercing sensation.
    Quotations
    Thy words shoot through my heart.
    1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, Act I, scene iii, page 1
  5. (obsolete, intransitive) To feel a quick, darting pain; to throb in pain.
    Quotations
    These preachers make / His head to shoot and ache.
    , George Herbert, edited by [Nicholas Ferrar], The Temple: Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel; and are to be sold by Francis Green, […]; reprinted London: Elliot Stock, […], 1885,
  6. (obsolete) To change form suddenly; especially, to solidify.
    Quotations
    If the menstruum be overcharged, metals will shoot into crystals.
    1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
    The north-east [wind] is loaded with vapor, insomuch, that the salt-makers have found that their crystals would not shoot while that blows.
    1802, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query VII.
  7. To send out or forth, especially with a rapid or sudden motion; to cast with the hand; to hurl; to discharge; to emit.
    Quotations
    an honest weaver as ever shot shuttle
    c. 1608–1610, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “The Coxcomb”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
    a pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores
    1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
  8. (informal, ditransitive) To send to someone.
3. (sports) To act or achieve.
  1. (wrestling) To lunge.
  2. (professional wrestling) To deviate from kayfabe, either intentionally or accidentally; to actually connect with unchoreographed fighting blows and maneuvers, or speak one's mind (instead of an agreed script).
  3. To make the stated score.
4. (surveying) To measure the distance and direction to (a point).
5. (transitive, intransitive, colloquial) To inject a drug (such as heroin) intravenously.
6. To develop, move forward.
  1. To germinate; to bud; to sprout.
    Quotations
    Onions, as they hang, will shoot forth.
    1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
    But the wild olive shoots, and shades the ungrateful plain.
    1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
  2. To grow; to advance.
    Quotations
    Well shot in years he seemed.
    1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
    Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, / To teach the young idea how to shoot.
    1728, James Thomson, “Spring”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768
  3. (nautical) To move ahead by force of momentum, as a sailing vessel when the helm is put hard alee.
  4. (transitive) To travel or ride on (breaking waves) rowards the shore.
    Quotations
    `Take the tiller, Mahomed!' I roared in Arabic. `We must try and shoot them.' At the same moment I seized an oar, and got it out, motioning to Job to do likewise.
    1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887
  5. To push or thrust forward; to project; to protrude; often with out.
    Quotations
    They shoot out the lip, they shake the head.
    1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Psalms 22:7
    Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting.
    1697, Virgil, “Pastoral 3”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
7. To protrude; to jut; to project; to extend.
  Quotations
  There is 432 Park Avenue, a surreal square tube of white concrete that appears to shoot twice as high as anything around it, its endless Cartesian grid of windows framing worlds of solid marble bathtubs and climate-controlled wine cellars within.
  2019 June 1, Oliver Wainwright, “Super-tall, super-skinny, super-expensive: the ‘pencil towers’ of New York’s super-rich”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 5 October 2020
  There shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling houses.
  1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “Chapter 49”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837
8. (carpentry) To plane straight; to fit by planing.
  Quotations
  two Pieces of Wood are Shot (that is Plained) or else they are Pared [...] with a Pairing-chissel
  1677, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-works
9. To variegate as if by sprinkling or intermingling; to color in spots or patches.
  Quotations
  The tangled water-courses slept, / Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.
  1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Dying Swan”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], page 54
10. (card games) To shoot the moon.
11. (aviation) To carry out, or attempt to carry out (an approach to an airport runway).
12. To carry out a seismic survey with geophones in an attempt to detect oil.
  Quotations
  Once the area is ready to "shoot," the seismic crew places geophones and cables along the line of the profile to be recorded.
  1986, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Moratoria: Hearing, page 438
noun
plural shoots
1. The emerging stem and embryonic leaves of a new plant.
  Quotations
  Prune off yet also superfluous branches, and shoots of this second spring.
  1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, […]
2. A photography session.
  Quotations
  While you see some of our exploration on camera, I also spent many happy hours between shoots with Chris Nix, digging out dozens of wonderful plans, maps and drawings of projects that I never knew existed, and some that never did exist.
  2021 June 30, Tim Dunn, “How we made... Secrets of the London Underground”, in RAIL, number 934, page 50
3. A hunt or shooting competition.
4. (professional wrestling, slang) An event that is unscripted or legitimate.
5. The act of shooting; the discharge of a missile; a shot.
  Quotations
  The Turkish bow giveth a very forcible shoot.
  1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], 3rd edition, London: […] William Rawley; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […]
  One underneath his horse to get a shoot doth stalk.
  1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion
6. A rush of water; a rapid.
7. (weaving) A weft thread shot through the shed by the shuttle; a pick.
8. A shoat; a young pig.
9. (mining) A vein of ore running in the same general direction as the lode.
  Quotations
  where to find a shoot of ore opposite one they may have taken away on a parallel lode
  1853, Thomas McElrath, William Jewett Tenney, William Phipps Blake, The Mining Magazine and Journal of Geology, Mineralogy, Metallurgy
  In the western dike is a shoot about 4 feet in diameter carrying a considerable sprinkling of cassiterite, ore which in quantity would undoubtedly be worth mining. The shoot contains a large amount of muscovite mica with quartz and very little or no feldspar...
  1901, Frank Lee Hess, pubs.usgs.gov report. Rare Metals. TIN, TUNGSTEN, AND TANTALUM IN SOUTH DAKOTA.
10. An inclined plane, either artificial or natural, down which timber, coal, ore, etc., are caused to slide; a chute.
  Quotations
  That there was no evidence before the jury that at the time of the accident the timber shoot was worked by the defendant company.
  1891, New South Wales. Supreme Court, The New South Wales Law Reports, volume 12, page 238
11. (card games) The act of taking all point cards in one hand.
12. A seismic survey carried out with geophones in an attempt to detect oil.
  Quotations
  Once the last line of cable has been retrieved, there is little evidence that a shoot has been conducted.
  1980, The Williston Basin, 1980, page 159

shoot²

/ʃuːt/

interjection
1. A mild expletive, expressing disbelief or disdain
  Quotations
  She practically stopped dancing, and started looking over everybody’s heads to see if she could see him. “Oh, shoot!” she said. I'd just about broken her heart—I really had.
  1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, page 96

Definition of "shoot"

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verb

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shoot2

interjection

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shoot²