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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shrivel.

To collapse inward; to crumble.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈʃɹɪvəl/
  1. To collapse inward; to crumble.

    intransitive
    The plant shrivelled from lack of water.
  2. To become wrinkled.

    intransitive
    His fingers were shriveled from being in the bath for too long.
  3. To draw into wrinkles.

    transitive
    The hot sun shrivelled the leaves.
Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.