SHRIVEL (shrivelled, shrivelling)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: shrivelled    , shrivelling   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does shrivel mean? 

• SHRIVEL (verb)
  The verb SHRIVEL has 2 senses:

1. wither, as with a loss of moisture

2. decrease in size, range, or extent

  Familiarity information: SHRIVEL used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHRIVEL (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they shrivel    ... he / she / it shrivels   
Past simple: shriveled    / shrivelled   
Past participle: shriveled    / shrivelled   
-ing form: shriveling    / shrivelling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Wither, as with a loss of moisture

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

shrink; shrivel; shrivel up; wither

Context example:

The fruit dried and shriveled

Hypernyms (to "shrivel" is one way to...):

decrease; diminish; fall; lessen (decrease in size, extent, or range)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "shrivel"):

atrophy (undergo atrophy)

blast (shrivel or wither or mature imperfectly)

die back; die down (suffer from a disease that kills shoots)

dry up; mummify (dry up and shrivel due to complete loss of moisture)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Decrease in size, range, or extent

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

shrink; shrivel

Context example:

My courage shrivelled when I saw the task before me

Hypernyms (to "shrivel" is one way to...):

decrease; diminish; fall; lessen (decrease in size, extent, or range)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sentence example:

Their earnings shrivel this year

 Context examples 

Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And you wrote that tremendous 'Love-cycle' to her—that pale, shrivelled, female thing!

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The old man poured a glass of neat gin down his shrivelled throat, and the effect upon him was extraordinary.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As she spoke I could see her husband's face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked—"What have you to say?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

They flashed past us in a rolling cloud of dust, and I had just a glimpse of the pale, handsome face of the master, and of the dark, shrivelled features of the man.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)