SHRUNKEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does shrunken mean? 

• SHRUNKEN (adjective)
  The adjective SHRUNKEN has 2 senses:

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

2. reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity

  Familiarity information: SHRUNKEN used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHRUNKEN (adjective)

Sense 1

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 2

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 

It was so wrinkled and shrunken and withered that it was difficult to say what it might have been.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)