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

Rock’s talent includes shooting down German plans with a single submachine gun and tossing grenades with great accuracy. —Justin Kroll, Deadline, 20 Nov. 2024

Voters were shooting down a proposal for the county to elect a charter commission to generally revise the county's home rule charter and frame and submit to the voters a revised charter, according to unofficial results. —Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press, 20 Nov. 2024

Drone fleets are impractical if not impossible to shoot down with conventional projectiles. —Henry A. Kissinger, Foreign Affairs, 18 Nov. 2024

On Election Day, Kentucky voters shot down Amendment 2, passed Amendment 1 and helped send Donald Trump back to the White House. —Bailey Loosemore, The Courier-Journal, 7 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1657, in the meaning defined at sense 1