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 families in Minab have not yet received acknowledgement from the Pentagon, let alone the meagre grace of compensation that was given to Ali when his wife’s plane was shot down. — Literary Hub, 13 Nov. 2026

City Council decides on proposal The City Council unanimously shot down the development plan Thursday. — Chris Higgins, Kansas City Star, 12 Nov. 2026

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, shot down all of those efforts. — Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2026

The few remaining police officers and volunteers such as Makhovsky carried rifles to shoot down FPV drones, a near-constant threat. — Clare Sebastian, CNN Money, 10 Nov. 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