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/ʃrɪmp/ Listen

noun

Shrimp n.

(Zool.)

(a)

Any one of numerous species of macruran Crustacea belonging to Crangon and various allied genera, having a slender body and long legs. Many of them are used as food. The larger kinds are called also prawns.

(b)

In a more general sense, any species of the macruran tribe Caridea, or any species of the order Schizopoda, having a similar form.

(c)

In a loose sense, any small crustacean, including some amphipods and even certain entomostracans; as, the fairy shrimp, and brine shrimp. See under Fairy, and Brine.

Figuratively, a little wrinkled man; a dwarf; in contempt. "This weak and writhled shrimp."

Opossum shrimp. (Zool.) See under Opossum.

Spector shrimp, or Skeleton shrimp (Zool.), any slender amphipod crustacean of the genus Caprella and allied genera.

Shrimp catcher (Zool.), the little tern (Sterna minuta).

Shrimp net, a dredge net fixed upon a pole, or a sweep net dragged over the fishing ground.

verb

Shrimp v. t. To contract; to shrink. (Obs.)

See images of 'Shrimp'

Etymology of 'Shrimp'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Shrimp" Quotes from Famous Books

... storekeeper, "think of a full-grown man breaking the law to save such a skinny little shrimp of a gent as Jig? Eh? More like a pretty girl than a boy, ...

— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand

... you know about it, shrimp?" said Mr. Norton, "you don't have to tidy up. Hush, isn't that mother calling? Let's go and fetch her, and then we'll go and see Uncle Richard's farm, where the milk you had for breakfast came from. There are three children there, Milly, ...

— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... unsuited to her modest disposition. The "lady" of a lobster is a curious-shaped substance in the head of that fish, bearing some distant resemblance to the figure of a woman. The expression is still known to fishmongers and others, who also refer to the "Adam and Eve" in a shrimp, a kindred formation. Curiously enough, this very phrase has completely puzzled Dr. Grosart, the learned editor of Herrick, who confesses that he can make nothing of the allusion in the following passage from ...

— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... I believe I could compose a symphonic poem under the influence of salmon and shrimp sandwiches—if I had ...

— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... of her own physical vigour: "Only that old and toothless nemesis of Loki can slay me, John Estridge!" And, to Palla: "I had some slight trouble in Stockholm. Fancy!—a little shrimp of a man approached me on the street one evening when there chanced to ...

— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

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