shrimp

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a long abdomen.

   1851, "A Lady of Charleston" (Sarah Rutledge), The Carolina Housewife, 2013, unnumbered page, Butter well a deep dish, upon which place a thick layer of pounded biscuit; having picked and boiled your shrimps, put them upon the biscuit; a layer of shrimps, with small pieces of butter, a little pepper, mace or nutmeg.

2. 2
   noun

   A small penis.

   shrimp dick

3. 3
   verb

   To fish for shrimp.

   Fishing, shrimping and crabbing are permitted on designated areas of the refuge subject to the following conditions:[…]

4. 4
   noun

   small slender-bodied chiefly marine decapod crustaceans with a long tail and single pair of pincers

5. 5
   noun

   any of various edible decapod crustaceans

6. 6
   noun

   disparaging terms for small people

7. 7
   verb

   fish for shrimp

8. 8
   noun

   The flesh of such crustaceans.

Etymology

From Middle English schrimpe (“shrimp, puny person”), possibly from or related to Middle Low German schrempen (“to wrinkle”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaz (“shrivelled”), from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (“to shrivel”), from Proto-Indo-European *skremb-, *skr̥mb-. See also Middle High German schrimpf (“a scratch, minor wound”), Norwegian skramp (“thin horse, thin man”); also Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and scrimp, Middle High German schrimpfen (“to shrink, dry up”), Swedish skrympa (“to shrink”); also Lithuanian skrembti (“to crust over, stiffen”), and possibly Albanian shkrum…