Etimology
From Middle English shoten, from Old English scēotan, from Proto-West Germanic *skeutan, from Proto-Germanic *skeutaną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kéwd-e-ti, from *(s)kewd- (“to shoot, throw”).
verb
shoot (third-person singular simple present shoots, present participle shooting, simple past shot, past participle shot or (rare) shotten)
To launch a projectile.
To move or act quickly or suddenly.
(sports) To act or achieve.
(surveying) To measure the distance and direction to (a point).
(transitive, intransitive, colloquial) To inject a drug (such as heroin) intravenously.
To develop, move forward.
To protrude; to jut; to project; to extend.
(carpentry) To plane straight; to fit by planing.
To variegate as if by sprinkling or intermingling; to color in spots or patches. (See shot silk on Wikipedia)
(card games) To shoot the moon.
(aviation) To carry out, or attempt to carry out (an approach to an airport runway).
To carry out a seismic survey with geophones in an attempt to detect oil.
Examples
to shoot a gun
Synonym: loose
If you please / To shoot an arrow that self way.
The man, in a desperate bid for freedom, grabbed his gun and started shooting anyone he could.
The hunter shot the deer to harvest its meat.
The unfortunate Divisional Director, responsible for the Emperor's safety, shot himself.
Shepard: She's surrounded by geth and pointing a gun at us. Shoot her!
They shot at a target.
He shoots better than he rides.
They're coming to shoot with us on Sunday.
The place was called the House of More, and I had shot at it once or twice in recent years.
Although the estate had been shot previously, there had been no effective keepering and little success with the pheasants released.
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.
After a very short time, he shot his load over the carpet.
"Can I ask you a question?" "Shoot."
The gun shoots well.
His idea was shot on sight.
He shot the couple in a variety of poses.
He shot seventeen stills.
I had the pleasure of shooting Arnold Newman while teaching across the hall from him at a summer photo workshop.
The film was mostly shot in France.
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.
After an initial lag, the experimental group's scores shot past the control group's scores in the fourth week.
There shot a streaming lamp along the sky.
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.
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.
shoot the rapids
She […] shoots the Stygian sound.
It was approaching the time when watermen would not shoot the bridge even without a passenger aboard.
a shooting pain in my leg
Thy words shoot through my heart.
These preachers make / His head to shoot and ache.
If the menstruum be overcharged, metals will shoot into crystals.
The north-east [wind] is loaded with vapor, insomuch, that the salt-makers have found that their crystals would not shoot while that blows.
an honest weaver as ever shot shuttle
a pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores
I'll shoot you an email with all the details
In my round of golf yesterday I shot a 76.
Synonym: fix
Onions, as they hang, will shoot forth.
But the wild olive shoots, and shades the ungrateful plain.
to shoot up rapidly
Well shot in years he seemed.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, / To teach the young idea how to shoot.
`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.
A plant shoots out a bud.
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head.
Beware the secret snake that shoots a sting.
The land shoots into a promontory.
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.
There shot up against the dark sky, tall, gaunt, straggling houses.
two Pieces of Wood are Shot or else they are Pared [...] with a Pairing-chissel
The tangled water-courses slept, / Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.
He tried to shoot the visual approach to runway 12, but the visibility was too low.
Once the area is ready to "shoot," the seismic crew places geophones and cables along the line of the profile to be recorded.
noun
shoot (plural shoots)
The emerging stem and embryonic leaves of a new plant.
A photography session.
A hunt or shooting competition.
(professional wrestling, slang) An event that is unscripted or legitimate.
The act of shooting; the discharge of a missile; a shot.
A rush of water; a rapid.
(weaving) A weft thread shot through the shed by the shuttle; a pick.
A shoat; a young pig.
(mining) A vein of ore running in the same general direction as the lode.
An inclined plane, either artificial or natural, down which timber, coal, ore, etc., are caused to slide; a chute.
(card games) The act of taking all point cards in one hand.
A seismic survey carried out with geophones in an attempt to detect oil.
Examples
Prune off yet also superfluous branches, and shoots of this second spring.
From the bonfire of last autumn's HS2 decision, there are green shoots pushing through the ashes.
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.
The Turkish bow giveth a very forcible shoot.
One underneath his horse to get a shoot doth stalk.
where to find a shoot of ore opposite one they may have taken away on a parallel lode
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...
That there was no evidence before the jury that at the time of the accident the timber shoot was worked by the defendant company.
Once the last line of cable has been retrieved, there is little evidence that a shoot has been conducted.
Etimology
Minced oath for shit.
interjection
shoot
A mild expletive, expressing disbelief or disdain
Examples
Didn't you have a concert tonight? —Shoot! I forgot! I have to go and get ready…
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.
Related words
synonyms
(mild expletive): darn, dash, fiddlesticks, shucks, sugar