1
as in ridicules
to make (someone or something) the object of unkind laughter
nowadays the aging activist is routinely shot down in most quarters of the media and dismissed as an irrelevant crank
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in kills
to reject by or as if by a vote
every one of my fund-raising ideas was shot down by the other club members
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in refutes
to prove to be false
the results of several studies shoot down the hypothesis that coffee causes heart attacks
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of shoots down
And in the comments of her introductory video, her team shoots down every plausible guess.
—
Lisa Respers France, CNN Money, 16 Oct. 2025
The powerful big tech lobby shoots down any law remotely alludes to testing and regulating AI machines.
—The Ai Insider, Interesting Engineering, 26 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for shoots down
Verb
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Back in their teenage years, Lexi’s older sister Andrea is depicted as a mean girl who ridicules Catherine mercilessly.—
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Then there’s the loud kind, where the audience openly ridicules you.—
Verb
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Storrie plays a young inmate in the film who attacks and ultimately kills Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) in Arkham Asylum.—
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Statewide in California, the population of between 50 and 70 wolves were responsible for 175 livestock kills between January and October of last year, state data show.—
Verb
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That statement alone refutes claims that IHRA is meant to silence debate.—
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This definitive non-detection directly contradicts earlier hints and fully refutes claims from experiments such as Neutrino-4, which reported positive evidence for such a signal.—
Verb
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Chelsea Handler honors Rob Reiner, mocks DiCaprio's 'Titanic' vacationNeed a news break?—
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There, Callahan mocks him, saying that killing him won't assuage Mike of his guilt.—
Verb
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Leadership that dismisses or undermines inclusion inflicts real harm on students, faculty, and staff.—
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Lanthimos dismisses any anxiety the industry might have about accommodating neurodivergent performers.—
Verb
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Unlike many artists who separate those worlds, Sierota refuses to see them as competing forces.—
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But Googoosh, now 75, refuses to be silenced.—
Verb
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If Duggan vetoes the ordinance, the council would have a week from the receipt of the veto to override it with a two-thirds majority vote — meaning at least six of the nine council members.—
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Yet an administrator vetoes the plan, and the meeting’s start is uncaffeinated.—
Verb
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But Sarah Graves gives a bit too much room and Penn downs a 3-pointeron the wing.—
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In between questions about Nineties cultural touchstones like Friends, Space Jam, Beavis and Butthead, the Spice Girls, and Sir-Mix-A-Lot — during which Kravitz racks up a lot of points and Butler downs a lot of shots — the pair also discusses working on Caught Stealing.—
Cite this Entry
“Shoots down.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/shoots%20down. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
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