Etymologically
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shrimp

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shrimpe,[2][3][4] probably a Germanic word related to Old English scrimman (“to shrink, dry up”)[2][5][6] and to Middle High German schrimpfen (“to contract”),[7][8][9] Middle Low German schrempen (“to contract, wrinkle”)[8][10] and Old Norse skreppa (“thin person”).[2][3] The American Heritage Dictionary suggests a Low German origin.[4] Barnhart and Etymonline see a shared notion of thinness, comparing Danish dialect skrimpe (“thin cattle”);[3][2] the word is also related to scrimp and shrink.[5][7][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The slender, long-tailed crustacean: 1327, in a wardrobe account of Edward II.[7][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense "puny person" appears almost at once, in Chaucer's Monk's Prologue (c. 1386), where the Host says that ordinary men are mere shrimps beside monks;[7][12] the OED thinks it comes directly from the root sense "shrunken creature" and is only now felt to be a transfer from the animal.[7][13] Shakespeare's Talbot is a "weak and writhled shrimp" in 1 Henry VI,[14][12] and Johnson (1755) gave both senses, the second as "a little wrinkled man; a dwarf".[14] The colour of a cooked shrimp, a bright pink, is shrimp from 1895.[7] A verb, to fish for shrimps, is recorded from 1801 in shrimping[2] and in the OED from 1844.[7]

Timeline

  • 1327 – the crustacean.[7][3]
  • c. 1386 – a puny person (Chaucer).[7][12]
  • 1801 – shrimping, fishing for shrimps.[2]
  • 1844 – the verb, to fish for shrimps.[7]
  • 1895 – a bright pink colour.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A small, chiefly marine crustacean with a slender body and long tail, many kinds of which are eaten.
  2. (chiefly US) The flesh of such animals as food.
  3. (informal, derogatory) A small, slight or unimportant person: He was a shrimp of a boy at twelve.
  4. A bright pink colour.

Verb

  1. To fish for or catch shrimps.

Word family

  • shrimper
  • shrimplike
  • shrimpy
  • shrimpfish
  • brine shrimp
  • fairy shrimp
  • ghost shrimp
  • mantis shrimp
  • scrimp
  • shrink
  • shrivel
  • prawn

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.