Shrink

How to spell shrink

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shrink

What does shrink mean?

1. verbTo become smaller in size, amount, or extent, or to make something do so.
2. nounAn informal term for a psychiatrist or psychotherapist.

Shrink in a sentence

• verb

  A hot wash can shrink a wool jumper by a full size.

• noun

  His shrink recommended weekly sessions to manage the anxiety.

• verb

  The company watched its profit margins shrink over the year.

• noun

  After the divorce he finally booked an appointment with a shrink.

Where does shrink come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native Germanic word, coming from the Old English verb scrincan, which meant 'to wither, to draw together, or to dry up'. It belongs to a strong-verb family alongside relatives in the older Scandinavian and Germanic languages, all carrying the idea of pulling inward or contracting. For centuries it was used quite physically, of skin drying, of bodies wasting, and of cloth tightening when wet, and from that came the familiar laundry sense of fabric becoming smaller. The figurative sense of flinching or recoiling, as in shrinking from a difficult task, grew up naturally from the same picture of a body drawing back. The mid-twentieth-century American slang use for a psychiatrist is a much later and jokier development, shortened from 'head-shrinker'. The spelling stays helpfully phonetic: the only real trap is remembering the opening shr- cluster rather than writing a plain sr- or shch-.

How the word is built

• shrink (from Old English scrincan: to wither, contract); a strong verb keeping its consonant cluster shr- and the -ink ending