Shrunk

How to spell shrunk

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shrunk

What does shrunk mean?

1. verbPast participle of 'shrink': having become smaller in size, usually after washing or drying.

Shrunk in a sentence

• My favourite jumper has shrunk after a hot wash.

• The leather seats had shrunk and cracked in the summer heat.

Where does shrunk come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past participle (and informal past tense) of the verb 'shrink', which descends directly from the Old English scrincan, meaning 'to wither, shrivel, or draw together'. That verb belonged to a small class of strong Germanic verbs that signalled their tenses by changing the inner vowel rather than adding an ending, which is why we get the run shrink, shrank, shrunk, much as we get sing, sang, sung. The same root appears in related Germanic languages, such as the Swedish skrynka, 'to wrinkle', showing the shared sense of skin or cloth puckering up. The spelling stays close to its ancient form, and the chief trap is simply choosing the right vowel: 'shrank' for the simple past and 'shrunk' for the participle, a distinction many fluent adults blur in everyday speech.

How the word is built

• shrink (Old English scrincan: to wither, contract)
• vowel change to -u- marking the past participle