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

While the Ukrainian Air Force managed to shoot down or disable the vast majority of the drones and missiles, two people were killed and dozens more injured in the attack on Thursday. —Ivana Kottasová, CNN Money, 11 July 2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the majority of the incoming targets were shot down, including by interceptor drones. —Ellie Cook shane Croucher, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 July 2025

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 270 targets, including two cruise missiles. —Hanna Arhirova, Los Angeles Times, 4 July 2025

Beating the top charges was not enough to convince Manhattan Federal Judge Arun Subramanian to release Combs under strict conditions on a $1 million bond, a request the jurist shot down hours after the verdict was announced. —Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News, 3 July 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