Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Abnormal vibration or wobbling, as of the wheels of an automobile.
- noun A dance popular in the 1920s, characterized by rapid shaking of the body.
- noun A chemise.
- intransitive verb To vibrate or wobble abnormally.
- intransitive verb To shake the body in or as if in dancing the shimmy.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun colloq. A chemise.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
abnormal vibration , especially in thewheels of avehicle . - noun archaic A
dance that waspopular in the 1920s. - noun rare A
sleeveless chemise . - verb To climb something (e.g. a pole) gradually (e.g. using alternately one's arms then one's legs.)
- verb intransitive To
vibrate abnormally , as a broken wheel. - verb intransitive, rare To
shake thebody as if dancing the shimmy.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb tremble or shake
- noun a woman's sleeveless undergarment
- verb dance a shimmy
- noun lively dancing (usually to ragtime music) with much shaking of the shoulders and hips
- noun an abnormal wobble in a motor vehicle (especially in the front wheels)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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November 4, 2008 at 1:08 pm just gotta give a shimmy and it acts like chaff on radar *shimmy* see, I can disappear in the cloud.
DEPRESSED ECONOMY - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008
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* shimmy shimmy* anbudan_BALA I think I saw the news of Michael Jackson's demise late!
Gaea Times (by Simple Thoughts) Breaking News and incisive views 24/7 2009
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Some emo yet functional play from Chile, a direct contrast to the cheap & cheerful two-chord shimmy from the Honduran side.
Pop World Cup 2010: Group H – Chile 1 Honduras 3 | FreakyTrigger 2010
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How the proton gets its spin out of the quark-gluon shimmy is still a big mystery, so theorists have been experimenting with difference ways to combine PDFs and form factors, to include interference terms, and understand all components of nulceon spin.
Generalized PDFs Imply a Gravitomagnetic Moment!?!?!? « Imaginary Potential 2008
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At the cash register, Roy cracked a package of pennies like an egg and let the coins shimmy into the bowl of the money drawer.
Salem Falls Picoult, Jodi, 1966- 2001
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This technology senses for irregularity in wheel balance and the related steering wheel vibration - or "shimmy" - it can cause.
Autoblog 2009
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This technology senses for irregularity in wheel balance and the related steering wheel vibration - or "shimmy" - it can cause.
Autoblog Green 2009
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This technology senses for irregularity in wheel balance and the related steering wheel vibration - or "shimmy" - it can cause.
Autoblog Green 2009
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This technology senses for irregularity in wheel balance and the related steering wheel vibration - or "shimmy" - it can cause.
Autoblog 2009
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This technology senses for irregularity in wheel balance and the related steering wheel vibration - or "shimmy" - it can cause.
Autoblog 2009
bilby commented on the word shimmy
"Next morning the São Francisco did indeed embark on her last journey up the river she was named for, waddling and shimmying as her gaily painted paddles slapped the water."
- 'The São Francisco', Germaine Greer in The Madwoman's Underclothes.
September 1, 2008