Adjacent Words

Shrinking definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SHRINK'ING, ppr. Contracting; drawing together; withdrawing from danger; declining to act from fear; causing to contract.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: process or result of becoming less or smaller; "the material lost 2 inches per yard in shrinkage" [syn: shrinking, shrinkage]
2: the act of becoming less

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Shrink Shrink, v. i. [imp. Shrankor Shrunkp. p. Shrunk or Shrunken, but the latter is now seldom used except as a participial adjective; p. pr. & vb. n. Shrinking.] [OE. shrinken, schrinken, AS. scrincan; akin to OD. schrincken, and probably to Sw. skrynka a wrinkle, skrynkla to wrinkle, to rumple, and E. shrimp, n. & v., scrimp. CF. Shrimp.] 1. To wrinkle, bend, or curl; to shrivel; hence, to contract into a less extent or compass; to gather together; to become compacted. And on a broken reed he still did stay His feeble steps, which shrunk when hard thereon he lay. --Spenser. I have not found that water, by mixture of ashes, will shrink or draw into less room. --Bacon. Against this fire do I shrink up. --Shak. And shrink like parchment in consuming fire. --Dryden. All the boards did shrink. --Coleridge. 2. To withdraw or retire, as from danger; to decline action from fear; to recoil, as in fear, horror, or distress. What happier natures shrink at with affright, The hard inhabitant contends is right. --Pope. They assisted us against the Thebans when you shrank from the task. --Jowett (Thucyd.) 3. To express fear, horror, or pain by contracting the body, or part of it; to shudder; to quake. [R.] --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Shrinking Shrink"ing, a. & n. from Shrink. Shrinking head (Founding), a body of molten metal connected with a mold for the purpose of supplying metal to compensate for the shrinkage of the casting; -- called also sinking head, and riser.

Moby Thesaurus

Olympian, Sanforizing, aloof, aseptic, atrophy, attenuation, backward, bashful, bashfulness, blank, boggle, boggling, chilled, chilly, cold, compunction, constrained, consumption, cool, cowardly, declining, demur, demurral, demurring, detached, diffidence, diffident, diminishing, discreet, distant, drying, drying up, dwindling, dying, ebbing, emaceration, emaciation, expressionless, fading, falter, faltering, fearful, fearing, fearsome, forbidding, frigid, frosty, goosy, guarded, hesitance, hesitancy, hesitant, hesitating, hesitation, icy, impassive, impersonal, in fear, inaccessible, introverted, jumpy, modest, modesty, mousy, nervous, objection, offish, parching, pause, preshrinkage, protest, qualm, qualm of conscience, qualmish, qualmishness, quiet, rabbity, receding, recoil, remote, removed, repressed, reserved, restrained, reticent, retiring, retreating, scary, scruple, scrupulosity, scrupulous, scrupulousness, searing, shaky, shivery, shrinkage, shriveling, shy, shyness, sinking, skittery, skittish, squeamish, standoff, standoffish, startlish, stickling, subdued, suppressed, thinning, timid, timorous, trembling, tremulous, trepidant, trigger-happy, unaffable, unapproachable, uncongenial, undemonstrative, unexpansive, ungenial, waning, wasting, withdrawn, withering