Etymograph

English

shock

Shock comes from Middle Dutch schokken ‘to jolt’ or Middle French choquer, from Old Dutch *skokkan, from Proto-Germanic *skukkaną ‘to shake’.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skukkaną1‘to move, shake, tremble’reconstructed
  2. Old Dutchc. 500–1150*skokkan1‘to shake up and down’reconstructed
  3. Middle Dutchc. 1150–1500schokken1‘to push, jolt, shake’uncertain
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1832shock1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English shock
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1832, Thomas De Quincey, Klosterheim Or: “They saw the moment approach when the two parties…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skukkanąWiktionary, English shock‘to move, shake, tremble’reconstructed
  2. Old Dutchc. 500–1150*skokkanWiktionary, English shock‘to shake up and down’reconstructed
  3. Middle Dutchc. 1150–1500schokkenWiktionary, English shock‘to push, jolt, shake’uncertain
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1832shockWiktionary, English shock. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1832, Thomas De Quincey, Klosterheim Or: “They saw the moment approach when the two parties…”

The story

Perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *skakaną (‘to shake, stir’), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kek-, *(s)keg- (‘to shake, stir’); see shake.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with shock, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *skek- ‘to jump’

  • shake ← schaken ← sċacan ← *skakan ← *skakaną
  • shoe ← scho ← sċōh ← *skōh ← *skōhaz

3 more relatives in the full family tree

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Another origin of shock

  1. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*skokreconstructed
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150*sċocuncertain
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500schok‘a stook or shock’
  4. Englishtodayshock

Inherited from Middle English schok, from Old English *sċoc or Middle Low German schok; in any case, from Proto-West Germanic *skok and possibly related to Latvian kàudze and Lithuanian kiūgis.

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Today it means

noun A sudden, heavy impact.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “shock”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *skukkaną / shock