shrinking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of shrink.

   The glacier has been shrinking steadily for several decades.

   Shrinking budgets forced the department to cancel two programs.

   Note

   One spelling, two jobs inside the verb: after a form of be it builds the progressive (the glacier is shrinking), and on its own it names the action as a gerund. It carries both sides of shrink, things growing smaller and people drawing back in fear. The same spelling also serves as the adjective for shy people and the noun.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of becoming smaller, or of drawing back timidly from something.

   The shrinking of the ice caps is measured by satellite each year.

   His constant shrinking from responsibility frustrated his colleagues.

   Similarcontraction, reduction, retreat, decline

   Oppositegrowth, expansion

   Note

   It becomes countable when the recoil is emotional or bodily. The plural names repeated flinchings, as in Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897), where a dreadful thought causes "tangible shrinkings of the body." The sense of growing smaller usually stays singular, as in the shrinking of the ice caps. The plural has a nineteenth-century ring, from The New Monthly Magazine of 1822 to Marsh.

3. 3
   adjective

   Shy and inclined to keep away from notice or attention.

   Her shrinking manner made it hard for her to speak up in meetings.

   A shrinking newcomer, he avoided eye contact with everyone in the office.

   Similarshy, timid, retiring, bashful, diffident

   Oppositebold, confident, outgoing, assertive

   Note

   The fearful side of the verb, settled into a trait: a shrinking person is not getting smaller but is forever drawing back. Unlike a participle, it grades (more shrinking, most shrinking), and that is the easiest way to tell it from the verb form. A very shrinking girl is shy, but nobody calls a glacier very shrinking.

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