Word
shrimp
US/ˈʃɹɪmp/
UK/ʃɹˈɪmp/
Definitions
01the animal
n. a small shellfish with a long tail and many legs that lives in the sea.
n. any of various small, aquatic decapod crustaceans, typically belonging to the suborder Dendrobranchiata or infraorder Caridea.
“The children found a tiny shrimp in a pool of water at the beach.”
“Marine biologists observed the shrimp migrating toward deeper waters as the coastal temperatures began to fluctuate during the autumn months.”
Synonyms
03small person
n. a person who is very small or thin.
n. a derogatory term for a person perceived as small, weak, or physically unimposing.
“He was a bit of a shrimp in high school, but he grew much taller later.”
“The older boys teased him, calling him a shrimp because he was the shortest student in the entire grade.”
Informal · Slang
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English schrimpe (“shrimp, puny person”), possibly from or related to Middle Low German schrempen (“to wrinkle”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic skrimpaz (“shrivelled”), from Proto-Germanic skrimpaną (“to shrivel”), from Proto-Indo-European skremb-, skr̥mb-. See also Middle High German schrimpf (“a scratch, minor wound”), Norwegian skramp (“thin horse, thin man”); also Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and scrimp, Middle High German schrimpfen (“to shrink, dry up”), Swedish skrympa (“to shrink”); also Lithuanian skrembti (“to crust over, stiffen”), and possibly Albanian shkrumb (“embers, ashes; crumble”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/shrimp