"shake a leg" meaning in English

See shake a leg in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-shake a leg.ogg [Australia] Forms: shakes a leg [present, singular, third-person], shaking a leg [participle, present], shook a leg [past], shaken a leg [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|shake<,,shook,shaken> a leg}} shake a leg (third-person singular simple present shakes a leg, present participle shaking a leg, simple past shook a leg, past participle shaken a leg)
  1. (idiomatic, frequently imperative) To get busy; to get going; to be productive. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: break a leg, show a leg Translations (get busy; get going; be productive): pohnout kostrou (Czech), se secouer (French), шевелись (ševelisʹ) (Russian)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for shake a leg meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shakes a leg",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shaking a leg",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shook a leg",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shaken a leg",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shake<,,shook,shaken> a leg"
      },
      "expansion": "shake a leg (third-person singular simple present shakes a leg, present participle shaking a leg, simple past shook a leg, past participle shaken a leg)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Shake a leg! We haven't got all day.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get busy; to get going; to be productive."
      ],
      "id": "en-shake_a_leg-en-verb-0D~SSx~6",
      "links": [
        [
          "get busy",
          "get busy"
        ],
        [
          "get going",
          "get going"
        ],
        [
          "productive",
          "productive"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "frequently imperative",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, frequently imperative) To get busy; to get going; to be productive."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "break a leg"
        },
        {
          "word": "show a leg"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cs",
          "lang": "Czech",
          "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
          "word": "pohnout kostrou"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
          "word": "se secouer"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "ševelisʹ",
          "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
          "word": "шевелись"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-shake a leg.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a5/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "shake a leg"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "shakes a leg",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shaking a leg",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shook a leg",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "shaken a leg",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "shake<,,shook,shaken> a leg"
      },
      "expansion": "shake a leg (third-person singular simple present shakes a leg, present participle shaking a leg, simple past shook a leg, past participle shaken a leg)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "break a leg"
    },
    {
      "word": "show a leg"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Shake a leg! We haven't got all day.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get busy; to get going; to be productive."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "get busy",
          "get busy"
        ],
        [
          "get going",
          "get going"
        ],
        [
          "productive",
          "productive"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "frequently imperative",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, frequently imperative) To get busy; to get going; to be productive."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-shake a leg.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a5/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/En-au-shake_a_leg.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cs",
      "lang": "Czech",
      "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
      "word": "pohnout kostrou"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
      "word": "se secouer"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "ševelisʹ",
      "sense": "get busy; get going; be productive",
      "word": "шевелись"
    }
  ],
  "word": "shake a leg"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.