shake [OE] Early examples of shake, an Old English word, include not only the senses ‘to tremble’ and ‘to make something vibrate’ but also the poetical sense ‘to depart or flee’. The Shakers are members of a US religious sect, properly called the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Coming, which split off from the Quakers (properly called the Religious Society of Friends) in the mid 18th century. Participants in the group’s services engaged in wild ecstatic movements, and people called them the Shaking Quakers. They were persecuted for their radicalism, and in 1774 left for America, where they lived frugally in celibate communities and made furniture noted for its simplicity and elegance. No great shakes, meaning ‘not very good’, dates from the early 19th century. It probably comes from the shaking of dice, where an unlucky throw would be ‘no great shakes’