shrivelled
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Reduced in size, volume, or vitality due to loss of moisture, age, or illness: Describes something that has become wrinkled, contracted, and often less effective or vigorous.
- (Especially of vegetation) Having lost all moisture; dried up: Describes plants or plant parts that have dried out and withered.
Examples of Usage
- Adjective:
- The shrivelled apple lay forgotten at the bottom of the fruit bowl.
- After the drought, the fields were covered in shrivelled grass.
- His hands were shrivelled with age and arthritis.
Advanced Usage
- "Shrivelled up": An emphatic form, often implying a complete or more dramatic process of shrinking and drying.
- The flower petals had shrivelled up in the intense heat.
- Used figuratively to describe a reduction in non-physical qualities like power, enthusiasm, or intensity.
- Her confidence shrivelled under his harsh criticism.
- The company's profits have shrivelled this quarter.
Variants and Related Words
- Shrivel (verb): To contract and wrinkle, often due to loss of moisture.
- Leaves begin to shrivel in the autumn.
- Shrunken (adjective): Having been reduced in size. Often used interchangeably with 'shrivelled', but can imply reduction from an original size without the same emphasis on wrinkling.
- Withered (adjective): Dried up and faded, especially referring to plants; also used for limbs impaired by disability.
- Wizened (adjective): Shrivelled or wrinkled with age.
- Sere (adjective): (Literary) Dry or withered.
Synonyms
- Withered
- Wizened
- Desiccated
- Wrinkled
- Shrunken
- Atrophied (especially for body parts or functions)
Antonyms
- Plump
- Fresh
- Succulent
- Blooming
- Turgid (for plants)
- Robust (for vitality)
Related Phrases
- To shrivel away: To gradually diminish or waste away.
- Without funding, the research program simply shrivelled away.
- A shrivelled husk: A metaphor for something that has lost all its former substance, life, or value.
- The abandoned factory was now just a shrivelled husk of its former productive self.
Adjective
- reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity
- our shriveled receipts during the storm
- as the project wore on she found her enthusiasm shriveled
- the dollar's shrunken buying power
- lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
- the old woman's shriveled skin
- he looked shriveled and ill
- a shrunken old man
- a lanky scarecrow of a man with withered face and lantern jaws-W.F.Starkie
- he did well despite his withered arm
- a wizened little man with frizzy grey hair
- (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture
- dried-up grass
- the desert was edged with sere vegetation
- shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings
- withered vines