shrimp

Formsshrimps, shrimping, shrimped

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Any of various swimming crustaceans with slender legs, long antennae, and a long abdomen, many of them edible.

   Each shrimp in the tide pool flicked its tail and shot backward.

   Trawlers haul thousands of shrimp from these waters each season.

   Similarprawn

   Note

   The living animal, and a noun with two plurals in good use. Poore and Ahyong's Marine Decapod Crustacea of Southern Australia (2004) counts shrimps by family, while Will Holtham's Home Port Cookbook (2011) serves 40 to 50 pounds of shrimp. For zoologists the word spans carideans and the Dendrobranchiata, though coral and Venus shrimps are odd enough to earn their own infraorder. Prawn overlaps it as a synonym.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The edible flesh of shrimp, commonly served boiled, fried, or grilled.

   He ordered a plate of grilled shrimp with lemon.

   The recipe calls for half a pound of shrimp, peeled and deveined.

   Similarprawn

3. 3
   nounslangcountable or uncountable

   A person regarded as small, puny, or insignificant.

   Like a small fish swimming among much bigger ones.

   Don't let that little shrimp boss you around.

   He felt like a shrimp standing next to the tall basketball players.

   Similarrunt, squirt, pipsqueak, shorty

   Oppositegiant

   Note

   The insult is nearly as old as the animal's name. Middle English schrimpe already meant both the crustacean and a puny person, and the Germanic root behind it means "shriveled." As slang it belittles someone for size or for lack of importance. It pairs naturally with little and that, as in that little shrimp. It is mild enough for teasing, but it is still a put-down.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To fish for shrimp, typically using nets or traps.

   Local crews shrimp in the bay from May through October.

   His family has shrimped in these waters for generations.

   Note

   A working verb that turns up most often as the noun shrimping, listed alongside fishing and crabbing in federal regulations. The trade divides itself by water, into offshore shrimping and inshore shrimping, and those who do it are shrimpers. The finite forms are plain and regular. Jerry Wayne Caines writes of times "we shrimped in the same boat" and notes that shrimping with an outboard is hard.

5. 5
   nounslangcountable or uncountable

   A penis regarded as small; a crude slang usage.

   The locker-room insult reduced him to nothing but a shrimp.

   His ex spread the rumor that he was packing a shrimp.

   Similarmicropenis

   Note

   Crude sexual slang that most often works as a modifier, in the phrase shrimp dick, where the animal's smallness does the mocking. It is always derisive. Even among friends it reads as a jab at a man's body, and in mixed or professional company it is simply an insult. Treat it as vulgar despite the harmless-sounding word.

6. 6
   nounslangcountable or uncountable

   A woman considered to have an attractive body but an unattractive face.

   The magazine's cruel feature ranked several stars as shrimps, praising their figures while mocking their faces.

   He called her a shrimp, then awkwardly added that her body was incredible.

   Note

   An uncommon and cruel piece of slang that judges a woman's face against her body. It carries the same insult as butterface, and prawn is used the same way. Because the everyday meanings of shrimp are so familiar, listeners rarely catch this one without context. It is a word to recognize when you meet it, not one to use.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To contract or shrink, drawing together into a smaller form.

   The old parchment had begun to shrimp at its curling edges.

   Muscles shrimp and tighten when exposed to sudden cold.

   Similarshrink, contract, shrivel

   Oppositeexpand, swell

   Note

   Here the word comes closest to its root: the Proto-Germanic verb behind it meant "to shrivel," and Middle Low German schrempen, "to wrinkle," may be related. This is the same ancestry that explains the "puny person" insult. Shrink is the word most readers will reach for. Shrimp in this sense suits drawing up or curling, as with parchment or muscle.

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