Shakers

British  

/ ˈʃeɪkəz /

plural noun

1. an American millenarian sect, founded in 1747 as an offshoot of the Quakers, given to ecstatic shaking, advocating celibacy for its members, and practising common ownership of property

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Shakers Cultural  

1. A religious group that rose in America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Shakers derived their name from a dance that was part of their religious ceremony. They lived in small, tightly knit communities and observed celibacy.

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Shaker furniture is renowned for its simplicity, strength, and beauty.

Example Sentences

The Shakers, with their signature spare style, have had an outsize impact on material culture, considering their numbers—a peak estimated at 6,000 members in the mid-19th century—and segregation from the world.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026

A meetinghouse stood at the center of every village created by the Shakers, the separatist and celibate Christian religious sect founded in the 18th century that was devoted to communal living and simple, functional design.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026

Intricate group choreography finds the Shakers swaying and stretching in tandem as if their hands were reaching up to pull God closer to Earth — or the congregation closer to Heaven.

From Salon • Dec. 27, 2025

Like the Shakers and their songs and prized furniture, “Ann Lee” was made with craft and care by a small and familial utopian community of its own.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 24, 2025

The Shakers had indeed left the land that would become Shaker Heights long before, and by the summer of 1997 there were exactly twelve left in the world.

From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng