# shrank

Pronunciation: US say "SHRANGK" /ʃɹæŋk/; UK

## Verb

1. Past tense of shrink. — simple past of shrink
   - Simple: Past tense of shrink. Use this form for something that got smaller in the past.
   - _The glacier shrank dramatically over the past century._
   - _Her savings shrank as prices kept rising._

## Noun

2. A large, highly decorative piece of furniture in the German or Dutch style, combining features of a clothing wardrobe, a curio, and a cabinet. *(dialectal, Dutch, Pennsylvania, US)*
   - Simple: A large, fancy wooden cabinet used to store clothes and show off nice things, in an old German or Dutch style.
   - _An ornately carved shrank dominated one wall of the farmhouse parlor._
   - _Antique dealers prize these massive shranks for their inlaid doors and bold painted colors._

## Origin

From Pennsylvania German, cognate with German Schrank.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/shrank (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).