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shrank

American  
[shrangk] / ʃræŋk /

verb

  1. a simple past tense of shrink.

shrank British  
/ ʃræŋk /

verb

  1. a past tense of shrink

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

He shrank ministries, lifted price controls and widened the peso’s trading bands, cooling triple-digit inflation and stabilizing markets.

From The Wall Street Journal

Opal shrank back in the doorway, and Oswald the miller filled it up with his huge girth.

From Literature

From Cole’s perspective, even if Musk cut government contracts and shrank the federal workforce—which he did—he couldn’t meaningfully dent Social Security and Medicare benefits.

From The Wall Street Journal

But in 2022-24 Antarctic sea ice shrank significantly, largely down to climate change, depriving the birds of safe places to moult.

From BBC

Ukraine's economy shrank by almost a third in the year after Russia's invasion.

From Barron's

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.