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.

Common collocations

• water shrew Noun + noun

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.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images