What is "shrew"

Shrew \Shrew\, a. [OE. shrewe, schrewe. Cf. Shrewd.] Wicked; malicious. [Obs.]
--Chaucer.

Shrew \Shrew\, n. [See Shrew, a.]

1. Originally, a brawling, turbulent, vexatious person of either sex, but now restricted in use to females; a brawler; a scold.

   A man . . . grudgeth that shrews [i. e., bad men] have prosperity, or else that good men have adversity.
   --Chaucer.

   A man had got a shrew to his wife, and there could be no quiet in the house for her.
   --L'Estrange.

2. [AS. scre['a]wa; -- so called because supposed to be venomous. ] (Zo["o]l.) Any small insectivore of the genus Sorex and several allied genera of the family Sorecid[ae]. In form and color they resemble mice, but they have a longer and more pointed nose. Some of them are the smallest of all mammals.

   Note: The common European species are the house shrew ( Crocidura araneus), and the erd shrew ( Sorex vulgaris) (see under Erd.). In the United States several species of Sorex and Blarina are common, as the broadnosed shrew ( S. platyrhinus), Cooper's shrew ( S. Cooperi), and the short-tailed, or mole, shrew ( Blarina brevicauda). Th American water, or marsh, shrew ( Neosorex palustris), with fringed feet, is less common. The common European water shrews are Crossopus fodiens, and the oared shrew (see under Oared).

   Earth shrew, any shrewlike burrowing animal of the family Centetid[ae], as the tendrac.

   Elephant shrew, Jumping shrew, Mole shrew. See under Elephant, Jumping, etc.

   Musk shrew. See Desman.

   River shrew, an aquatic West African insectivore ( Potamogale velox) resembling a weasel in form and size, but having a large flattened and crested tail adapted for rapid swimming. It feeds on fishes.

   Shrew mole, a common large North American mole ( Scalops aquaticus). Its fine, soft fur is gray with iridescent purple tints.

Shrew \Shrew\, v. t. [See Shrew, a., and cf. Beshrew.] To beshrew; to curse. [Obs.] ``I shrew myself.''
--Chaucer.

small insectivorous mammal, Old English screawa "shrew-mouse," unknown outside English, and "the absence of evidence for the word between the OE. period and the 16th c is remarkable" [OED]. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *skraw-, from PIE *skreu- "to cut; cutting tool" (see shred (n.)), in reference to the shrew's pointed snout. Alternative Old English word for it was scirfemus, from sceorfan "to gnaw."\n

\nThe meaning "peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman" [Johnson] is late 14c., from earlier sense of "spiteful person" (male or female), mid-13c., traditionally said to derive from some supposed malignant influence of the animal, which was once believed to have a venomous bite and was held in superstitious dread (compare beshrew). Paired with sheep from 1560s as the contrasting types of wives.

n. 1 Any of numerous small, mouselike, chiefly nocturnal, mammals of the family Soricidae. 2 (lb en pejorative) An ill-tempered, nagging woman: a scold. vb. (context obsolete transitive English) To beshrew; to curse.

1. n. a scolding nagging bad-tempered woman [syn: termagant]

2. small mouselike mammal with a long snout; related to moles [syn: shrewmouse]

Shrew (Marilyn Maycroft) is a fictional character, a mutant in the Marvel Comics Universe. Her first appearance was in X-Factor vol. 1 #80.

A shrew or shrew mouse ( family Soricidae) is a small mole-like mammal classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are also not to be confused with West Indies shrews, treeshrews, otter shrews, or elephant shrews, which belong to different families or orders.

Although its external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse, a shrew is not a rodent, as mice are. It is in fact a much closer relative of moles, and related to rodents only in that both belong to the Boreoeutheria Magnorder. Shrews have sharp, spike-like teeth, not the familiar gnawing front incisor teeth of rodents.

Shrews are distributed almost worldwide: of the major tropical and temperate land masses, only New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand do not have any native shrews; in South America, shrews are relatively recent immigrants and are present only in the northern Andes. In terms of species diversity, the shrew family is the fourth most successful mammal family, being rivalled only by the muroid rodent families Muridae and Cricetidae and the bat family Vespertilionidae.

The shrew – an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterised by scolding, nagging, and aggression – is a comedic, stock character in literature and folklore, both Western and Eastern. The best-known work with this theme is probably Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. The figure represents "insubordinate female behavior" in a marital system of polarised gender roles, that is supposedly male-dominated in a moral hierarchy.

In 30 cultural groups in the middle 20th century, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvald collected over 400 literary and oral version of shrew stories, in Europe alone. This stereotype or cliché was common in early to mid-20th century films, and retains some present-day currency, often shifted somewhat toward the virtues of the stock female character of the heroic virago.