shrunk

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of shrink. As a simple past it is less formal than shrank.

   The lake shrunk during the long drought that summer.

   The company's profits have shrunk for three straight quarters.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs here. It can stand alone as the simple past (the lake shrunk), or follow have as the participle (profits have shrunk). Shrank remains the more traditional past, but shrunk in that slot is no modern slip. Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814) has Fanny, who "shrunk back to her seat." There it carries the verb's fearful sense of drawing away, not of growing smaller.

2. 2
   adjective

   Reduced in size from an earlier or normal state; contracted or made smaller.

   The shrunk leather had hardened and cracked over the years.

   Years in storage left the old felt hat shrunk and misshapen.

   Similarshriveled, contracted, reduced, withered

   Oppositeswollen

   Note

   The participle is pressed into service as an adjective, with shrunken as its closer-fitting twin. Shakespeare's As You Like It puts it before a noun: a careless joiner's wainscot will "prove a shrunk panel," wood pulled away from its frame. It compares with more and most (more shrunk, most shrunk). In modern prose shrunken usually takes the slot before a noun, and shrunk sits easier after a verb: left the hat shrunk.

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