Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun slang A psychiatrist or psychotherapist; a shrink.
  • noun Literally, one who shrinks heads, as previously done by some Amazon tribes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a physician who specializes in psychiatry
  • noun a savage who cuts off and preserves the heads of enemies as trophies

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Presumably, patients and clients feel as though their heads are being shrunk.

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Examples

  • One of the white coats accompanied me around a turning hallway: I knew we were on the way to a head-shrinker—the Army psychiatrist. . .

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

  • Which makes us wonder: Who's going to the head-shrinker... and why?

    Mega Buzz: Five-0's New Teammate, Housewives' New Lover and a True Blood Return 2011

  • Captain Singh's expression would be one to behold-following which, Dick would probably find himself stunned unconscious and wake under the solicitous attentions of a concerned head-shrinker!

    Werehunter Lackey, Mercedes 1999

  • "I'll get you an appointment with the colony head-shrinker for those guilt complexes," he said.

    Decision at Doona McCaffrey, Anne 1969

  • They're probably torturing the poor thing, Grego and that sadistic quack head-shrinker.

    The Fuzzy Papers Piper, H. Beam 1962

  • I know this idiot girl who keeps telling me I ought to go to a head-shrinker; she says I have a father complex.

    Breakfast At Tiffany's Capote, Truman, 1924- 1958

  • I know this idiot girl who keeps telling me I ought to go to a head-shrinker; she says I have a father complex.

    Breakfast At Tiffany's Capote, Truman, 1924- 1958

  • I find it perplexing when someone has a child with someone who turns out to be a, let's just say, less than stellar model of fatherhood or mate and then continues to procreate without getting a serious head-shrinker autopsy of what went wrong the first time.

    Ask And Ye Shall Receive 2010

  • Now Dr. Mike's fancy head-shrinker salary will pay for Lonnie's spiffy coffin, and pay to clean the gin sweats out of his sheets besides.

    The Comics Curmudgeon 2010

  • Mother Funk insists her son enter therapy with a woman head-shrinker, which leads to AA meetings and the pretty new associate at the office (Rachael Leigh Cook) telling Bob, "The truth is the only thing you never have to be ashamed of."

    Dallas Observer | Complete Issue 2009

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