shaker (n.)
c. 1400, "a sieve, a kitchen device;" by mid-15c. in the general sense of "one who or which shakes," agent noun from shake (v.).
From 1640s it was applied (with capital initial) to Christian sects whose devotional exercises gave some participants enthusiastic convulsions (compare Quaker). The best-known among the sects, originally followers of Mother Ann Lee but later based in America, were so called from 1784. The adjective with reference to furniture styles associated with these Shakers is recorded from 1866. The meaning "container for mixing cocktails, etc." is recorded from 1868 (ancient Greek had seison as the name of a kind of vase, literally "shaker"). Related: Shakeress; Shakerism. The figurative phrase movers and shakers "those with the power to shape or set the course of a society or people" is attested from 1874, though the notion of who they are perhaps has shifted:
WE are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams :
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
[from Arthur O'Shaughnessy, "Ode," 1874]
updated on July 26, 2022
Dictionary entries near shaker
shah
shake
shake-down
shaken
shake-out
shaker
Shakespeare
Shakespere
shake-up
shaking
shako