How to Use shrink in a Sentence

shrink

1 of 2 verb
Definition of shrinknext
Synonyms for shrinknext
  • The sweater shrank when it was washed.
  • The treatment should shrink the tumor.
  • Hot water shrank the sweater.
  • Meat shrinks as it cooks.
  • He shrank in horror when he saw the dead cat.
  • The town's population shrank during the war.
  • And right now, in Texas, far too many of us are fish in a shrinking rock pool.
    — Megha Satyanarayana, Scientific American, 8 Sep. 2023
  • As the size of those holes shrinks, so will the unevenness of the paper’s terrain.
    — Steve Nadis, Quanta Magazine, 30 Nov. 2023
  • Note that some shoppers said these shrink in the wash, so be sure to buy a size up or hand wash.
    — Kristine Solomon, Travel + Leisure, 12 Apr. 2024
  • And Ada Tseng gives tips to parents on how to shrink those big piles of plastic toys.
    — Russ Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 29 Aug. 2023
  • The center’s staff shrank to a skeleton crew, and the many ambitious projects came to a halt.
    — Joshua Hammer, Smithsonian Magazine, 29 Nov. 2023
  • But what Apfel chose to do was anything but shrink herself.
    — Margaux Anbouba, Vogue, 2 Mar. 2024
  • Sununu has also called on the field to shrink as the main means to overcome Trump in a primary.
    — Natasha Korecki, NBC News, 20 Oct. 2023
  • Here’s a look at the early field, which could grow or shrink before the May 2024 primary date.
    — Baltimore Sun Staff, Baltimore Sun, 10 May 2023
  • But by noon, the crime scene had shrunk to a square of brick sidewalk on P Street NW, cordoned off with police tape.
    — Alexandra Ma, Washington Post, 17 Mar. 2024
  • But, before any of that happens, the researchers plan to work on shrinking down the size of the tools, and maybe even fiddling with the concept of taste next.
    — Sara Kiley Watson, Popular Science, 11 May 2023
  • Keep in Mind The high walls shrink the cooking surface and the handle got quite hot during cooking.
    — Barbara Bellesi Zito, Better Homes & Gardens, 31 July 2023
  • The flesh shrinks and drops about 20 percent of its weight, creating meat with rich umami.
    — Ann Maloney, Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2024
  • But as of last year, the restaurant drastically shrank the options down to a mere 10 sauces.
    — Dennis Lee / The Takeout, Quartz, 19 Mar. 2024
  • Trump’s head is so large that the sheriff’s department appears to have shrunk its logo to make room.
    — Zach Helfand, The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2023
  • The number of grand juries that have convened has shrunk, but the number of cases has increased.
    — Barnini Chakraborty, Washington Examiner, 5 May 2023
  • And each of the last few years, the gap in performance between the two songs has shrunk, though Carey’s has thus far remained the decisive leader.
    — Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 29 Nov. 2023
  • The Great Red Spot has been shrinking in the last decade and may soon fade or disappear altogether.
    — Dean Regas, The Enquirer, 5 Jan. 2024
  • Bonus: after putting Patagonia Baggies through wash-and-dry over five times, the waistband has not shrunk at all!
    — Maverick Li, Men's Health, 24 July 2023
  • But now Silver says all the data wizardry in the world won’t matter much when budgets start shrinking.
    — Bypaige Hagy, Fortune, 15 Aug. 2023
  • But residual-fee rates have shrunk in the streaming era, even as the volume of residual payments has risen with the TV boom.
    — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 10 May 2023
  • Trade between the United States also shrank by 12.3 percent.
    — Philip Wang, CNN, 7 June 2023
  • Boston has shrunk in population since the nineteen-fifties, and Wu sees housing as the key to regrowth.
    — E. Tammy Kim, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2024
  • The Fed was shrinking its balance sheet at record speed, far faster than Hanke had expected.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 30 May 2023
  • Employers are now paying higher payroll taxes to shrink the debt.
    — Dan Walters, The Mercury News, 9 Apr. 2024
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shrink

2 of 2 noun
  • He is seeing a shrink.
  • The strapping is thin enough to flex which makes a nice smooth arch to shape the shrink wrap.
    — Popmech Editors, Popular Mechanics, 21 Nov. 2019
  • When the temps start to rise, removing the tape and shrink film is easy.
    — Belle Duchene, Better Homes & Gardens, 31 Oct. 2023
  • To the untrained eye, Ms. Lifton’s kitchen looks as if it has been hit with a shrink ray.
    — Jess Eng, New York Times, 12 Sep. 2023
  • The twist: the shrink is being held against his will as part of the killer’s quest to free himself of his demons.
    — Keith Phipps, Rolling Stone, 2 Aug. 2022
  • So all of this goes into a store’s or a chain’s shrink level.
    — The Politics Of Everything, The New Republic, 25 Oct. 2023
  • As the Shrek firms grow, in other words, their hunting-ground shrinks.
    — The Economist, 6 Feb. 2020
  • The big shrink raised EPS by around one-third over that period.
    — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 30 June 2020
  • Theft of goods from sales floors is only one part of that seven cents of shrink.
    — Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 23 Dec. 2021
  • Downhill to one’s shrink, then an uphill struggle on the walk back: a very Eliot-like odyssey.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 26 Sep. 2022
  • The stack of stuff is then shrink-wrapped and loaded onto a delivery truck.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 15 July 2021
  • The narrator quits his job, fires his shrink, and sets off on a road trip, just as Acosta did.
    — Abby Aguirre, The New Yorker, 13 July 2021
  • Google The battery is 306 mAh, and while that's not different from last year, the shrink to 4 nm should help with the battery a lot.
    — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, 4 Oct. 2023
  • Any dime-store shrink will attest that humans learn abuse, they’re not born with it.
    — Tom Nunan, Forbes, 5 May 2021
  • And Coel works through them with the control of a pilot, a jockey, a geometer, a shrink.
    — New York Times, 10 Dec. 2020
  • As its habitat shrinks, so too do the cotton-top tamarin’s hopes for survival.
    — National Geographic, 30 Jan. 2020
  • Or how much the average person grows (or shrinks) at each age?
    — Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Polar bears are spending more and more time on land, Abrahms said, as their hunting grounds on the ice shrink.
    — Nidhi Sharma, NBC News, 7 Feb. 2023
  • First the habitat shrinks, then the forage, then the population.
    — Matt Wyatt, ExpressNews.com, 13 Feb. 2020
  • The flashback is soon revealed to have been a dream, a recurring nightmare that Bucky’s shrink asks him about the next day.
    — Brian Tallerico, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2021
  • Early in the year, the United States economy recorded a 1.4% shrink in the first quarter.
    — Yec, Forbes, 8 Aug. 2022
  • There is great joy in laughing 90 percent of the day as opposed to needing a shrink after work.
    — Derek Lawrence, EW.com, 2 Sep. 2019
  • Even people who bought as recently as a week ago have seen their $1,000 shrink.
    — Chris Morris, Fortune, 10 May 2022
  • Which means the county, and others like it, see their potential tax base shrink.
    — John Archibald | Jarchibald@al.com, al, 6 Oct. 2019
  • Jump behind the other trolls and naysayers and get on board the next shuttle, which will take you to an eye doctor or a shrink.
    — Dan Wiederer, Chicago Tribune, 18 Nov. 2022
  • But the downgrade doesn't stop at a shrink to 1080p resolution.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 5 Nov. 2020
  • Late in the fourth quarter, the Pacers were struggling to close out the lowly Rockets, letting a 22-point lead shrink to eight.
    — Akeem Glaspie, The Indianapolis Star, 14 Apr. 2021
  • The White House would blast a budgetary shrink-ray at the agency - a 12 percent reduction to $7.1 billion.
    — oregonlive, 19 Mar. 2019
  • India has a young, vast work force that is expanding as China’s ages and shrinks.
    — Alex Travelli, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2023
  • Some analysts say the higher shrink may partly reflect a return to prepandemic norms rather than entirely new trends in theft.
    — Jennifer Williams-Alvarez, WSJ, 9 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shrink.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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