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SHRINK FROM
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Avoid (one's assigned duties)
Example:
The derelict soldier shirked his duties
Synonyms:
fiddle; goldbrick; shirk; shrink from
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Hypernyms (to "shrink from" is one way to...):
avoid (refrain from doing something)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "shrink from"):
scrimshank (British military language: avoid work)
malinger; skulk (avoid responsibilities and duties, e.g., by pretending to be ill)
slack (avoid responsibilities and work, be idle)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s something
Context examples:
But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It was no wonder that the general should shrink from the sight of such objects as that room must contain; a room in all probability never entered by him since the dreadful scene had passed, which released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of conscience.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
She remained in her seat, and so did Lady Russell; but she had the pleasure of getting rid of Mr Elliot; and she did not mean, whatever she might feel on Lady Russell's account, to shrink from conversation with Captain Wentworth, if he gave her the opportunity.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world?
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
With the unerring instinct of her noble heart, she touched the chords of my memory so softly and harmoniously, that not one jarred within me; I could listen to the sorrowful, distant music, and desire to shrink from nothing it awoke.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
