shrinkage

Etymology

It is formed from English shrink + -age.^[2][3][4][5] Shrink is from Old English scrincan (“to draw in the limbs, contract, shrivel up”), from Proto-Germanic *skrink-.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act or fact of shrinking, the contraction of a material into a smaller size or bulk: 1713, according to Etymonline.^[2] The OED's first quotation is from 1800, in Patrick Colquhoun's treatise on the commerce and police of the River Thames,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also gives 1800.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was physical, the contraction of a material through heat, cold or wet.^[3][2] Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848) still listed the word, quoting Webster's example of grain shrinking in drying.^[7] From 1862 it also meant the amount by which something has shrunk,^[3][2] and since 1873, in Mark Twain and C. D. Warner's The Gilded Age, it was used of immaterial things, a fall in amount or value.^[3] The commercial sense, an allowance for goods lost through waste or theft, is recorded from 1961,^[3] and Black's Law Dictionary defines it as the loss of inventory through theft, breakage or waste.^[8] The slang sense, the shrunken state of a man's genitals after a swim in cold water, was popularized by an episode of Seinfeld first broadcast in May 1994.^[9]

Timeline

• 1713 – the act of shrinking, the contraction of a material.^[2] The OED's first quotation is from 1800.^[3]
• 1862 – the amount by which something has shrunk.^[3][2]
• 1873 – a reduction in amount or value.^[3]
• 1891 – in gunmaking, the difference in diameter between two cylinders shrunk on to each other.^[3]
• 1961 – in commerce, an allowance for goods lost through waste or theft.^[3]
• 1994 – slang, the shrinking of a man's genitals in cold water.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of shrinking; contraction in size, as of a fabric when washed or a metal when cooled.^[6][10][3]
2. The amount by which something has shrunk.^[10][3]
3. A reduction in number, amount or value: a steady shrinkage in membership.^[6][10][3]
4. The loss of a shop's goods through theft, damage or waste.^[10][8][3]
5. The loss in weight of livestock during shipping and preparation for market.^[10][6]
6. (slang) The shrunken state of a man's genitals after exposure to cold water.^[9]

Related words

• shrink-wrap
• shrink

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Bartlett, John Russell (1848), Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett and Welford
8. ^ a b Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West
9. ^ a b c Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins