shrug

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shruggen, also schruggen, shrukken and shrokken,^[2][1][3] of unknown origin.^{[4][5][6][7][2][3]} Etymonline, Klein, Partridge and Skeat compare Danish skrugge (“to stoop, crouch”) and the dialectal Swedish skrukka,^{[8][9][10][11]} and the Middle English Dictionary notes them with a query,^[2] but the OED thinks they are probably unconnected.^[4] Skeat related the word to shrink,^[11] and Weekley asked whether it might be cognate with German schrecken (“to frighten”).^[12] The noun is formed from the verb.^[4][8][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is from the Vernon manuscript of the Ancrene Riwle, about 1390, where the word means to fidget or jerk with the shoulder.^[2] The OED and Barnhart date the verb from about 1440, in the “Promptorium Parvulorum”, meaning to shiver or shudder,^[4][3] and Etymonline puts it in the late 14th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb meant to fidget, to move the body from side to side, and to shiver or shudder with cold or fear.^[2][4][5] The sense of raising the shoulders appears about 1450, at first also as a gesture of cringing;^[4][3] Etymonline notes that only from about 1600 is it clearly a sign of doubt or indifference.^[8] The noun for this gesture is first recorded in 1594, in Nashe's “The Unfortunate Traveller”,^[4][3][13] and Etymonline observes that early writers often treated it as a foreign or theatrical gesture, a Spanish, French or Neapolitan shrug;^[8] Johnson (1755) quoted Cleveland's "Spanish shrug".^[14] The obsolete noun meaning a tug or pull is older, from about 1460.^[4][15] The figurative shrug off, to dismiss lightly, is recorded from 1909,^[4][8] and the use for a woman's short, close-fitting jacket began in the United States in 1957.^[4] In Shetland a shrug was shallow, stony ground.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – to fidget, to jerk with the shoulder.^[2]
• c. 1440 – to shiver, shudder.^[4][3]
• c. 1450 – to raise the shoulders.^[4][3]
• c. 1460 – noun, a tug, pull (obsolete by 1742).^[4]
• before 1549 – transitive, to shrug the shoulders.^[4]
• 1594 – noun, the gesture of raising the shoulders.^[4][3][13]
• 1909 – shrug off, to dismiss.^[4][8]
• 1957 – a woman's short jacket.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To raise and lower the shoulders briefly, as a sign of indifference, doubt or not knowing: Asked where the keys were, he only shrugged.^[17][13][5]
2. To raise and lower (the shoulders) in this way: She shrugged her shoulders and walked on.^[4][5]
3. shrug off or shrug aside: to dismiss something as unimportant; also, to take off a garment with a shrugging movement.^[5][4]
4. To get into a coat or other garment with a shrugging movement.^[5][4]
5. (obsolete) To shiver or shudder with cold or fear.^[13][4][5]

Noun

1. A brief raising and lowering of the shoulders: He answered with a shrug.^[17][13]
2. A woman's short, close-fitting jacket or cardigan.^[17][13][4]

Word family

• unshrugging
• shrug off

Related words

• shrink

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins