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

Hochul’s two plans to date to generate an alternative funding source — an increase in New York City’s payroll tax and a one-time payment of $1 billion out of the state’s general fund — were shot down by lawmakers in Albany. —Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News, 18 June 2024

Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan shot down a proposal from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the UAE be involved in a postwar administration. —Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 6 June 2024

Russia has used the systems, initially designed to shoot down aircraft, to bombard the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which is just 45 miles from Belgorod. —Aric Toler, New York Times, 4 June 2024

After the Armenians shot down the planes, revealing the positions of their anti-aircraft systems, their forces came under attack from more modern drones. —Joshua Keating, Vox, 3 June 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1657, in the meaning defined at sense 1