shoot down

verb

shot down; shooting down; shoots down

transitive verb

1

: to cause to fall by shooting

shot down the helicopter

especially : to kill in this way

was shot down in cold blood

2

: to put an end to : defeat, reject

shoot down legislation

3

: deflate, ridicule

4

: discredit sense 2

shoot down a theory

Synonyms

• deride
• gibe
• jibe
• jeer
• laugh (at)
• mock
• ridicule
• scout
• skewer

Examples of shoot down in a Sentence

nowadays the aging activist is routinely shot down in most quarters of the media and dismissed as an irrelevant crank

every one of my fund-raising ideas was shot down by the other club members

Recent Examples on the Web

If the Algerian Air Force shot down Mali’s Akinci rather than a separatist group, which seems most likely, that would prove less damaging to the drone’s overall reputation. —Paul Iddon, Forbes.com, 6 Apr. 2025

The Kansas City Chiefs are also in limbo due to the renovations for Arrowhead Stadium being shot down by Jackson County, Missouri. —Lee Habeeb, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Apr. 2025

Watch the pair channel their inner Neeson and use Ghostbuster proton packs to shoot down unicorns in the video above. —EW.com, 2 Apr. 2025

Footage released on social media showed flames in the night, with a Yemeni man claiming a drone had been shot down. —Arkansas Online, 2 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1657, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for shoot down

• adown
• blowdown
• breakdown
• countdown
• crackdown
• crosstown
• downtown
• drawdown
• dropdown
• facedown
• godown
• hometown