shrivel
/ˈʃɹɪvəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.39 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The plant shrivelled from lack of water."
- "This Upside Down economy was the product, Hansen said, of a shriveling population, the closing of the frontier and the maturing of industries."
- "His fingers were shriveled from being in the bath for too long."
- "The hot sun shrivelled the leaves."
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, *skrinkwaną