shoo

[ shoo ]

interjection

1. (used to scare or drive away a cat, dog, chickens, birds, etc.)

verb (used with object)

, shooed, shoo·ing.

1. to drive away by saying or shouting “shoo.”
2. to request or force (a person) to leave:

   I'll have to shoo you out of here now.

verb (used without object)

, shooed, shoo·ing.

1. to call out “shoo.”

shoo

/ ʃuː /

interjection

1. go away!: used to drive away unwanted or annoying people, animals, etc

verb

1. tr to drive away by or as if by crying "shoo."
2. intr to cry "shoo."

Word History and Origins

Origin of shoo¹

1475–85; earlier showe, shough, shooh, ssou (interjection), imitative; compare German schu

Word History and Origins

Origin of shoo¹

C15: imitative; related to Middle High German schū, French shou, Italian scio

Example Sentences

If many dolphins are getting shooed away from an area or are too scared to eat or reproduce, that could hurt their whole community.

From Science News For Students

As the archaeologists worked, he shooed grazing sheep to make sure they didn’t walk across the site.

From Popular-Science

Built on years of breakthroughs in deep learning, it could pick up all kinds of objects with remarkable accuracy, making it a shoo-in for jobs like sorting products into packages at warehouses.

From MIT Technology Review

The casting in this movie really is brilliant across the board, and if there were an Oscar for casting, Promising Young Woman would be a shoo-in.

From Vox

Before the neighbors stepped in to help, Si and his wife would take turns guarding the house each night, hoping their presence would shoo away the teenagers.

From Washington Post

Still “Happy,” truthfully, should have been a shoo-in for Record of the Year given its incessant popularity this past year.

From The Daily Beast

Of course the opposite is true too--if McAuliffe bucks history and wins, then Politico will have to write that HRC is a shoo-in.

From The Daily Beast

The Gyllenhaal siblings are also a shoo-in, though I fear I would jibber and jabber—and possibly giggle—over Jake.

From The Daily Beast

When the rest of us would stand, we could watch parts of the ceremony until security would try to shoo us back to our seats.

From The Daily Beast

The Iron Lady actress bested frontrunner Viola Davis, who seemed a shoo-in for her turn in The Help.

From The Daily Beast

The grotesque fancy came into my head that she would do the same thing if she wanted to shoo some chickens out of a garden.

From Project Gutenberg

A gust o' win' is skirlin' the noo, and as we luik ower the faem, the haar is risin', weetin' the green swaird wi' misty shoo'rs.

From Project Gutenberg

The draper wasna certain that so licht a shoo'r could richtly be called rain.

From Project Gutenberg

Every night at milking time I shoo them out until they finally get it into their heads they are not wanted.

From Project Gutenberg

Cap Pike left the fire to stand guard over the water barrels and shoo the mules away.

From Project Gutenberg