The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shrivel \Shriv"el\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Shriveledor Shrivelled; p. pr. & vb. n. Shriveling or Shrivelling.] [Probably akin to shrimp, shrink; cf. dial. AS. screpa to pine away, Norw. skrypa to waste, skryp, skryv, transitory, frail, Sw. skr["o]pling feeble, Dan. skr["o]belig, Icel. skrj?pr brittle, frail.] To draw, or be drawn, into wrinkles; to shrink, and form corrugations; as, a leaf shriveles in the hot sun; the skin shrivels with age; -- often with up.
Wiktionary
1 wrinkled because the volume has reduced while the surface area of the outer layer has remained constant. 2 Collapsed in size. alt. 1 wrinkled because the volume has reduced while the surface area of the outer layer has remained constant. 2 Collapsed in size. v
(en-past of: shrivel)
WordNet
v. wither, especially with a loss of moisture; "The fruit dried and shriveled" [syn: shrivel up, shrink, wither]
decrease in size, range, or extent; "His earnings shrank"; "My courage shrivelled when I saw the task before me" [syn: shrink]
[also: shrivelling, shrivelled]
adj. (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture; "dried-up grass"; "the desert was edged with sere vegetation"; "shriveled leaves on the unwatered seedlings"; "withered vines" [syn: dried-up, sere, sear, shriveled, withered]
lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness; "the old woman's shriveled skin"; "he looked shriveled and ill"; "a shrunken old man"; "a lanky scarecrow of a man with withered face and lantern jaws"-W.F.Starkie; "he did well despite his withered arm"; "a wizened little man with frizzy gray hair" [syn: shriveled, shrunken, withered, wizen, wizened]
reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity; "our shriveled receipts during the storm"; "as the project wore on she found her enthusiasm shriveled"; "the dollar's shrunken buying power" [syn: shriveled, shrunken]
See shrivel
Usage examples of "shrivelled".
No movement ensued, but some few of the glands were blackened and shrivelled, whilst many became quite pale.
All but one fell, exploding as their skins shrivelled and gas bladders ruptured.
As she watched it started to clip off the shrivelled tubular flowers and put them into its mouth.
The infant quadruped had been roasted in its chemical sleep, reduced to a shrivelled black mummy.
It was a standard slice, twenty-five centimetres long, but the bark was still attached, and more importantly, there was a small twig with a few shrivelled leaves.
Bark shrivelled and peeled off in long strips behind them, the naked wood below roaring like a blast furnace as it caught alight.
Where ten days ago the grassland had been dusted with graceful white and pink stars, small shrivelled petals now skipped about like minute autumn leaves.
It was dirty and unkempt, with strands shrivelled and singed from the fire in the stable.
He screeched as his eyebrows smouldered and his hair shrivelled into black frazzled ash.
The glossy electrophorescent cells had shattered and shrivelled to rain across the floor, their fragments curling up, puffing out licks of smoke.
Or if anything at all, an old dead thing in his lightless grave, blind and shrivelled and leathery as the mummified Thyre in their cavern mausoleums.
What, and tell everyone here that during Paxton's first month with the Branch she'd caught the shrivelled little scumbag in her mind one night, playing with himself to the purr of her vibrator and the tingling of her senses?
Right now, I'm on my way to see the shrivelled old granddad frozen in the ice up top.
We take meat with us and visit a handful of shrivelled, prehistoric, ice-doomed Lords?
He propelled himself with arms which were black where scorched flesh had shrivelled into the bone.