quake

American  

[kweyk] / kweɪk /

verb (used without object)

quakes, present (3rd person singular) quaked, past participle, past quaking present participle

1. (of persons) to shake or tremble from cold, weakness, fear, anger, or the like.

   He spoke boldly even though his legs were quaking.

   Synonyms:

   shudder

2. (of things) to shake or tremble, as from shock, internal convulsion, or instability.

   The earth suddenly began to quake.

   Synonyms:

   quiver

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noun

quakes plural

1. an earthquake.

2. a trembling or tremulous agitation.

quake British  

/ kweɪk /

verb

1. to shake or tremble with or as with fear

2. to convulse or quiver, as from instability

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noun

1. the act or an instance of quaking

2. informal short for earthquake

Synonym Usage

See shiver ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unquaking
  adjective
• quakingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• quakes
  plural

Participles

• quaking
  present
• quaked
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• quake
  simple
• quakes
  simple
• have quaked
  perfect
• has quaked
  perfect
• am quaking
  progressive
• are quaking
  progressive
• is quaking
  progressive
• have been quaking
  perfect progressive
• has been quaking
  perfect progressive

Past

• quaked
  simple
• had quaked
  perfect
• was quaking
  progressive
• were quaking
  progressive
• had been quaking
  perfect progressive

Future

• will quake
  simple
• will have quaked
  perfect
• will be quaking
  progressive
• will have been quaking
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of quake

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English cwacian “to shake, tremble”

Explanation

When you quake, you tremble and shiver. A scary sound in a dark basement might make you quake. To quake is to move rapidly back and forth, so quickly that the movement is almost a vibration. If you've ever felt the floor quake during an actual earthquake, you know the fluttery, shaking kind of movement. A person can quake with fear, and a building can quake during a wind storm. You can also use the word quake as a noun, to describe the feeling itself. The Old English root is cwacian, or "tremble or clatter of teeth."

Example Sentences

Appeared in the June 30, 2026, print edition as 'Venezuelans Blast Quake Response'.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 30, 2026

Rumble added that it would change its name to RUM Group and operate through two units—the Rumble video platform and Quake AI, a cloud and AI-infrastructure business.

From Barron's • Jun. 18, 2026

That classic will forever be known in Seattle as the Beast Quake game, when Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch broke nine tackles to score a 67-yard touchdown.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2025

This isn't the first time we've heard rumblings of a so-called "Swift Quake."

From Salon • Mar. 19, 2024

So it was Jesse who’d gone on the Web and, between bouts of Quake II, tom through various search engines and relevant Chicago websites.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz