To draw into wrinkles especially with a loss of moisture.
He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shrivelling up like ghosts at sunrise. The Age of Innocence by Wharton, Edith View in context. By the tenth day her last cocoanut was gone, and she was shrivelling from thirst. blast-shrivel or wither or mature imperfectly. die back, die down-suffer from a disease that kills shoots; The plants near the garage are dying back. dry up, mummify-dry up and shrivel due to complete loss of moisture; a mummified body was found. Full Definition of SHRIVEL. intransitive verb. 1. : to draw into wrinkles especially with a loss of moisture. 2. a: to become reduced to inanition, helplessness, or inefficiency b: dwindle. transitive verb. : to cause to shrivel. See shrivel defined for English-language learners. See shrivel defined for kids. : to become dry and wrinkled from heat, cold, or old age. This is the British English definition of shrivel. View American English definition of shrivel. Change your default dictionary to American English. View the pronunciation for shrivel. 90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing. These words appear in red, and are graded with stars. One-star words are frequent, two-star words are more frequent, and three-star words are the most frequent. shrivel verb [I/T]. › to ​become ​dried out and ​smaller, ​appearing ​crushed or ​folded, or to make something do this: [T] The ​hot ​sun shriveled the ​flowers I put in the ​window. (Definition of shrivel from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press). As part of our occasional series on idioms used in or in relation to business, we look today at the important area of making projects happen – getting projects started, making progress with those projects and, as sometimes happens, failing to make progress. Translations for 'shrivel'. 1  British English: shrivel When something shrivels or when something shrivels it, it becomes dryer and smaller, often with lines in its surface, as a result of losing the water it contains. 2  VERBThe plant shrivels and dies. My insides curl and shrivel, I am dying, slowly, by inches. They could only leave their pond for a few minutes before they began to shrivel up and die. Like a tiny seed, the strength of his convictions slowly began to shrivel. global English and language change from our blog. Blog. A must for anyone with an interest in the changing face of language. The Macmillan Dictionary blog explores English as it is spoken around the world today. Definition and synonyms of shrivel from the online English dictionary from Macmillan Publishers Limited. 90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing. These words appear in red, and are graded with stars. One-star words are frequent, two-star words are more frequent, and three-star words are the most frequent. Example Sentences Including 'shrivelling'. The old man shot her a look of shrivelling hatred, then turned to his son. It probably wasn't her, I lied to myself, and tried not to imagine her curly brown hair shrivelling when the. I was already shrivelling up for using such an expression outside a De Niro movie before she came back and added her death stare. shrink from Old English: Old English scrincan, of Germanic origin, is related to Swedish skrynka ‘to wrinkle’. The sense ‘draw back’ in an action of recoiling in abhorrence or timidity dates from the early 16th century. Shrivel (mid 16th century) comes from a related Scandinavian word. In the informal sense ‘a psychiatrist’ shrink is a shortening of headshrinker. The longer form appeared in print in 1950, and shrink itself in 1966. A headshrinker was originally a head-hunter who preserved and shrank human heads
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shrivelling definition