Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To become or make shrunken and wrinkled, often by drying: Leaves die, fall, and shrivel. The heat shriveled the unwatered seedlings.
- v. To lose or cause to lose vitality or intensity: My enthusiasm shriveled as the project wore on. Inflation shriveled the buying power of the dollar.
- v. To become or make much less or smaller; dwindle.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To contract; draw or be drawn into wrinkles; shrink and form corrugations, as a leaf in the hot sun, or the skin with age.
- Synonyms To shrivel is to become wrinkled or corrugated by contraction; to shrink is, as a rule, to contract while preserving the same general form.
- To contract into wrinkles; cause to shrink into corrugations.
- To make narrow; limit in scope.
- To wither; blight; render impotent.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To draw, or be drawn, into wrinkles; to shrink, and form corrugations; ; -- often with
up . - v. To cause to shrivel or contract; to cause to shrink onto corruptions.
WordNet 3.0
- v. wither, as with a loss of moisture
- v. decrease in size, range, or extent
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Okay, why did my brain shrivel to the size and consistency of a pea after two kids and you just had a baby and show no signs of “baby brain” at all.”
“But consider yourself lucky: if I were really to blog about our sex life you KNOW that your testicles would shrivel from the embarassment.”
“He even used "going forward," a term to shrivel the heart of anyone toiling at a corporation that values meaningless management-talk.”
“We have seen that with porn channels in cable situations where finally they kind of shrivel up a little bit.”
CNN Transcript - Larry King Live: What Is the State of Journalism? - March 31, 2000
“The bottom line is that the seed of humanity in each of us can grow more vibrant with love or can shrivel through neglect.”
The Huffington Post: Vivian Glyck: What Christian Bale Taught Me About Parenting
“Developers and equipment manufacturers, among others, would have no leverage on price, would see their markets shrink and their profits shrivel.”
The Huffington Post: Art Brodsky: Labor Leader's Lament: 'Where Are the Jobs' AT&T Promised?
“Vastly talented hosts like Anderson Cooper have seen their audiences shrivel because of their neutrality and his producers are now encouraging him to get in the face of his interviewees.”
The Huffington Post: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach: Only Moral Courage Will Make Rabbis Relevant
“The internet comments included ugliness like this: "It is not Mr. Beck's eyes that should fail, rather his vocal chords should shrivel up"; and this one from a man named Brian: "Beck is already blind to the truth, so what does it matter if he can't see.”
The Huffington Post: Diane Dimond: Internet Anonymity: Unleashing Our Inner Sociopath
“This reminds me of someone I talked to who once told some protesters that the LRAD sonic blaster emitted radiation that would shrivel their testicles.”
“The sell out to the highest bidder and shrivel at the first sign of controversy.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shrivel’.
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Words for financial performance
Business and financial journalists tend to use the same tired few words to describe what happens to economies, markets and prices. Enough of grow, soar, boom, crash, bust, collapse and so on. Let's...
swell, inflate, dilate, mount, accrue, magnify, amplify, blossom, fatten up, dwindle, dissipate, shrivel and 31 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Words We Dislike!
A list created for TRM, because there are certain words that we just kind of hate.
lover, fetus, smegma, saggy, coulomb, placenta, consumate, moist, sticky, bedroom suit, jiggles, blubber and 52 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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Mary and Max (2009)
Words from 2009 'Mary and Max' film.
muddy, puddle, birthmark, piggyback, pensive, gumnut, pompom, salvage, takeaway, oven, shed, deliberate and 112 more...
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Wrapped up in books
I'm reading books. And there are words and phrases I come upon for the first time, or that are used with usages that are new to me.
So, this is just a plain list of those words. Don't expect ...hobble, mackerel, crone, cavort, hoyden, rheumy, scatter, hiss, recoil, trundle, shatter, flaxen and 200 more...
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Nullologue
nullologue, vaudeville, debauchery, debauched, libertine, nothing, dhadak, tz pf, nothingology, goodbyeology, sharmuta, manifesto and 866 more...
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ash
ash
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure and 4874 more...
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my dictionary
palatial, immaculate, sleep-deprived, Kleptocracy, customs brokerage, parochial, stagnation, egregious, rife, interdict, unassuming, extortion and 81 more...
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fibrous words
good strong words that create distinct images and feelings
tuneful, usher, fibrous, trinket, dollop, tinker, besmirch, simper, urge, scrawny, shrivel, slake and 69 more...
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dry, diminished words
wanze, welew, welk, arefy, marcescible, wizen, parch, sere, xerarch, seral, psammosere, xerosere and 16 more...
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