shrew

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small, active, insect-eating mammal with a pointed snout, resembling a mouse

   A tiny shrew searched for insects beneath the leaves.

2. 2
   noun

   a woman characterized as aggressively bad-tempered or nagging; dated and offensive

   The play relies on the dated stereotype of calling an outspoken woman a shrew.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Shrew comes from Old English scrēawa, from a Germanic source related to words meaning “dwarf,” “devil,” or “fox.” It was formerly a term of abuse for both men and women and a name for the devil, though it is uncertain whether the insulting human sense arose from the animal name or the reverse.

From Old English screawa, the name of the small mammal. Medieval folklore wrongly treated shrews as venomous or malicious, which helped produce the later insulting human sense.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary