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 of shoot down

• 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

Missile defense interceptors — which can cost between $2 million and $4 million each — aren’t a cost-effective tool to shoot down a $20,000 Iranian drone. —Faisal J. Abbas, semafor.com, 27 Mar. 2026

Democrats sent over a counteroffer Wednesday morning that included ICE guardrails, which was also shot down by Republicans. —Lisa Hagen, Hartford Courant, 27 Mar. 2026

Close to 1,000 drones were launched at Ukraine over the course of Tuesday, of which some 94% were shot down. —Arkansas Online, 26 Mar. 2026

Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region north of Moscow, said 56 drones were shot down there, and a fire broke out in the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga as the result of Ukraine’s attack. —Dasha Litvinova, Los Angeles Times, 25 Mar. 2026

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