SHRIVELLED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does shrivelled mean? 

• SHRIVELLED (adjective)
  The adjective SHRIVELLED has 3 senses:

1. (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture

2. lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

3. reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity

  Familiarity information: SHRIVELLED used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHRIVELLED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture

Synonyms:

dried-up; sear; sere; shriveled; shrivelled; withered

Context example:

withered vines

Similar:

dry (free from liquid or moisture; lacking natural or normal moisture or depleted of water; or no longer wet)

Domain category:

botany; flora; vegetation (all the plant life in a particular region or period)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness

Synonyms:

shriveled; shrivelled; shrunken; withered; wizen; wizened

Context example:

a wizened little man with frizzy grey hair

Similar:

lean; thin (lacking excess flesh)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity

Synonyms:

shriveled; shrivelled; shrunken

Context example:

the dollar's shrunken buying power

Similar:

decreased; reduced (made less in size or amount or degree)

 Context examples 

And you wrote that tremendous 'Love-cycle' to her—that pale, shrivelled, female thing!

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a grated door.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

They flashed past us in a rolling cloud of dust, and I had just a glimpse of the pale, handsome face of the master, and of the dark, shrivelled features of the man.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked—"What have you to say?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The old man poured a glass of neat gin down his shrivelled throat, and the effect upon him was extraordinary.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)