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

• ridicule
• mock
• laugh (at)
• rag on

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

Post-war, the IAF claimed to have shot down 90% of incoming missiles. —Sebastien Roblin, Forbes.com, 1 July 2025

Ukraine claimed to have shot down or neutralized 475 of the 537 drones and missiles fired, though Ukraine and Russia are known to inflate the effectiveness of their air defense capabilities. —Brady Knox, The Washington Examiner, 29 June 2025

Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, probably having been electronically jammed. —Volodymyr Yurchuk, Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2025

The Royals did not send the letter — the two teams separated strategically after Jackson County voters shot down an April 2024 ballot measure to keep them in the county. —Sam McDowell, Kansas City Star, 26 June 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