Shrinking

How to spell shrinking

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shrinking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shrinking mean?

1. verbBecoming smaller in size, amount, or extent.
2. verbDrawing back or flinching, especially out of fear, reluctance, or distaste.

Shrinking in a sentence

• The company's profits have been shrinking for three quarters in a row.

• She answered every question without shrinking from the difficult details.

• The wool jumper kept shrinking every time it went through the wash.

• He stood his ground rather than shrinking from the confrontation.

Where does shrinking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'shrink', which descends from the Old English scrincan, meaning 'to wither, to draw together, or to shrivel up'. That verb belonged to a family of Germanic words for contracting or curling inward; related forms appear in older Scandinavian and Dutch speech for skin or fruit that puckers and tightens. The everyday sense of fabric or material becoming smaller after washing grew naturally from this idea of drawing together, while a second, older sense survived too: to flinch or recoil, as a person shrinks back from danger or shame. The spelling keeps the cluster 'shr' at the front and the 'nk' before the suffix, so the trap is simply remembering the single 'k' inside 'shrink' followed by the regular '-ing'. Because it is built on a native Old English root rather than a borrowed Latin or French one, the word has stayed phonetically transparent through the centuries.

How the word is built

• shrink (Old English scrincan: to draw back, wither)
• -ing (present participle / verbal suffix)