shrew
/ʃɹuː/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.75 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife—shrill, vehement, and fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names, she called him."
- "His wife was a shrew with warts on her face and she spoke to him sharply when others were present, but Simcha did not complain."
- "“Cease thy squalling, thou shrew!”"
- "I shrew myself."
Etymology
From Middle English schrewe, from Old English sċrēawa (“shrew”), from Proto-Germanic *skrawwaz (“thin; meagre; frail”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut; shorten; skimp”). Cognates include Old High German scrawaz (“dwarf”), Norwegian skrugg (“dwarf”).