Shāk'er, n.

n. 1. A person or thing that shakes or agitates; as, the shaker of the earth. 2. One of a sect of Christians, popularly so called from the agitations or movements in dancing which characterize their worship, but styled by themselves the “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing.” They originated in England about the year 1770, but are now confined to the United States. At first they were an offshoot from the Friends, or Quakers, and held similar views; but they now differ widely from them, both in their theological creed and in their practices, which are very peculiar. They hold that there is an eternal Father and Mother in the Deity, the heavenly parents of all angelical and human beings; that Christ also is dual (Jesus being the male, and Mother Ann Lee, founder of the sect, the female Christ); that non-resistance, non-participation in any earthly government, a community of property, and a life of celibacy and virgin purity, are of prime obligation to every true believer; that there are four cycles of human religious progress, and therefore four heavens and four hells, the first three of which are still places of probation. They are sometimes nicknamed Shaking Quakers. [U. S.] New Am. Cyc.