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

The most important change may therefore be less dramatic than the image of a laser beam shooting down a drone. — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 2 Oct. 2026

By October 2022, rumors were flying that the sisters were fighting over their mother’s will, a claim that Wynonna shot down while speaking with People. — Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct. 2026

Many of the drones have been shot down, but not all, and the ballistic missiles have largely gotten through, destroying buildings and killing civilians; so far, roughly 100 have died. — Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Affairs, 30 Sep. 2026

The insurgents continued to focus on raids but also engaged in more extensive operations and terror tactics, such as ZIPRA’s shooting down of civilian airliners in 1978 and ’79. — Chinatsu Tsuji, Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Sep. 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