shrivel
/ˈʃɹɪvəl/ verb
Forms shrivels shriveling shrivelling shriveled shrivelled
- verb (intransitive) To collapse inward; to crumble. “The plant shrivelled from lack of water.”
- verb (intransitive) To become wrinkled. “His fingers were shriveled from being in the bath for too long.”
- verb (transitive) To draw into wrinkles. “The hot sun shrivelled the leaves.”
Synonyms
Etymology
First recorded as shriveled (“shrivelled”), probably of North Germanic origin related to dialectal Swedish skryvla (“to wrinkle, shrivel”); perhaps ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *skrinkwaną (“to shrivel, shrink”) or *skrimpaną (“to shrink”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To draw, or be drawn, into wrinkles; to shrink, and form corrugations; as, a leaf shriveles in the hot sun; the skin shrivels with age; --often with up.
- verb To cause to shrivel or contract; to cause to shrink onto corruptions.
Etymology [Probably akin to shrimp, shrink; cf. dial. AS. screpa to pine away, Norw. skrypa to waste, skryp, skryv, transitory, frail, Sw. skröpling feeble, Dan. skröbelig, Icel. skrj brittle, frail.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shrivel”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details