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Fine Dictionary

shrew

WordNet
A flying shrew with long flowing hair, a cat's head and huge skeletal feet. She is carrying a burning torch.
A flying shrew with long flowing hair, a cat's head and huge skeletal feet. She is carrying a burning torch.
  1. (n) shrew
    small mouselike mammal with a long snout; related to moles
  2. (n) shrew
    a scolding nagging bad-tempered woman
Illustrations
Mole (top) and shrew (bottom). Numbered top right: 5. Top left the name in seven languages. Part of the first album with drawings of four-legged friends. First of twelve albums with drawings of animals, birds and plants known around 1600, commissioned by Emperor Rudolf II. With explanation in Dutch, Latin and French.
Mole (top) and shrew (bottom). Numbered top right: 5. Top left the name in seven languages. Part of the first album with drawings of four-legged friends. First of twelve albums with drawings of animals, birds and plants known around 1600, commissioned by Emperor Rudolf II. With explanation in Dutch, Latin and French.
Two elephant mice (Macroscelides proboscideus), full size. Seen by Gordon in Namaqualand and so called, but not mentioned by other Cape travelers, but drawn there by Simon van der Stel (1685-1686).
Two elephant mice (Macroscelides proboscideus), full size. Seen by Gordon in Namaqualand and so called, but not mentioned by other Cape travelers, but drawn there by Simon van der Stel (1685-1686).
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Interesting fact
The pigmy shrew a relative of the mole is the smallest mammal in North America. It weighs 1/14 ounce less than a dime.
  1. Shrew
    (Zoöl) Any small insectivore of the genus Sorex and several allied genera of the family Sorecidæ. 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.
  2. Shrew
    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.", "A man had got a shrew to his wife, and there could be no quiet in the house for her."
  3. Shrew
    To beshrew; to curse. "I shrew myself."
  4. Shrew
    Wicked; malicious.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Interesting fact
Elephants and short-tailed shrews get by on only two hours of sleep a day.
  1. (n) shrew
    A wicked or evil person; a malignant person.
  2. (n) shrew
    A woman of a perverse, violent, or malignant temper; a scold; a termagant.
  3. (n) shrew
    An evil thing; a great danger.
  4. (n) shrew
    A planet of evil or malignant aspect or influence.
  5. shrew
    Wicked; evil; ill-natured; unkind.
  6. shrew
    To make evil; deprave.
  7. shrew
    To curse; beshrew.
  8. (n) shrew
    A small insectivorous mammal of the genus Sorex or family Soricidæ; a shrew-mouse. They are all small, greatly resembling mice in size, form, color, and general appearance (whence the name shrew-mouse), but belong to a different order(Insectivora. not Rodentia). They may be distinguished at a glance by the long sharp snout. They are widely distributed, chiefly in the northern hemisphers, and the species are numerous, of several different genera, particularly Sorex, which contains more than any other. The little animals are very voracious, and devour great quantities of insects and worms; but there is no foundation in fact for the vulgar notion that shrews are poisonous, or for any other of the popular superstitions respecting these harmless little creatures. The shrews have usually a musky odor, due to the secretion of some special subcutaneous glands with which they are provided, and in some of the larger kinds this scent is very strong. Among the shrews are the most diminutive of all mammals, with the head and body less than 2 inches long; others are two or three times as large as this. The common shrew of Europe is Sorex vulgaris. The commonest in the United States is a large short tailed species, Blarina brevicauda. The teeth of shrews are generally chestnut or reddish-black, but some shrews are white-toothed, as those of the genus Crocidura; some are aquatic, as the oared or oar-footed shrew, Crossopus fodiens of Europe, and Neosorex palustris of North America. The name is extended, with a qualifying term, to related animals of a different family, as the shrew-moles and desmans. See shrew-mole, elephant shrew, marsh-shrew, mole-shrew, musk-shrew. squirrel-shrew, water-shrew, and cuts under Blarina, desman, Petrodromus, Ptilocercus, Rhynchocyon, and Tupaia.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
Interesting fact
According to an age old custom, carrying a dead shrew in your pocket wards off rheumatism
  1. (n) Shrew
    shrōō a brawling, troublesome woman: a scold: a family of insectivorous mammals closely resembling, in general form and appearance, the true mice and dormice—the head long, muzzle long and pointed
Quotations
Washington Irving
Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.
Washington Irving
Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary AS. screáwa,; -- so called because supposed to be venomous. ]

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary A.S. screáwa, a shrew-mouse, its bite having been supposed venomous; cf. Ger. scher-maus, a mole.

Usage in the news

Woman's Will Presents 'Taming of the Shrew . berkeleydailyplanet.com

"We've been talking about doing it since our first year," said Erin Merritt of Woman's Will's production of The Taming of the Shrew . berkeleydailyplanet.com

Tiny Tree Shrew Is World's Heaviest Drinker. foxnews.com

Tiny tree shrew can drink you under the table. msnbc.msn.com

The shrew lives in the forest of Malaysia and feeds on the flowers of the bertam palm. blog.wired.com

A ' Shrew ' That's Tamed But Wildly Entertaining. ashingtonpost.com

Sarah Fallon, The Taming of the Shrew , Colorado Shakespeare Festival. estword.com

Fossilized shrew could be ancient human kin. cnn.com

Ballet Austin dancers Jaime Lynn Witts, Jordan Moser, James Fuller and Christopher Swaim rehearse for 'The Taming of the Shrew . statesman.com

Robert Aubry Davis, Jane Horwitz and Trey Graham discuss The Taming of the Shrew at Folger Theatre through June 10. eta.org

"The Taming of the Shrew" Meets The Spaghetti Western . amu.org

In repertory, July 17-Aug 29: "The Taming of the Shrew". nytimes.com

Amazingly, though the tree shrew s drink like fish, they don't seem to get drunk. foxnews.com

Most people would only consider eating a whole shrew, hair and skeleton and all, on a dare, and probably for money. ired.com

Above, George Maffei, at far left, perform's in a King's College Theater production of 'Taming of the Shrew'. citizensvoice.com

Usage in scientific papers

Evol. 35: 17-31. Robinson, T.J., B. Fu, M.A. Ferguson-Smith, and F. Yang. (2004). Cross-species chromosome painting in the golden mole and elephant-shrew: support for the mammalian clades Afrotheria and Afroinsectiphillia but not Afroinsectivora.
Measuring Fit of Sequence Data to Phylogenetic Model: Gain of Power using Marginal Tests

Usage in literature

His domestic life was not happy, his wife, Xantippe, being a noted shrew. "History of Education" by Levi Seeley

You'll be just the sort of long-tongued shrew, always arguing, that men hate. "The Beth Book" by Sarah Grand

Damn you, you shrew . "Tartuffe" by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere

I pity any man who is tied to that shrew for life. "Penshurst Castle" by Emma Marshall

Everybody hath spoiled me, and I am a shrew. "A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia" by Amanda Minnie Douglas

Even Anne's Mrs. Masham was not a shining personality, and her Sarah of Marlborough was only a brilliant shrew. "Imaginary Interviews" by W. D. Howells

A plague on the shrew and on her pudding! "The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault" by Charles Perrault

Brighteye soon became aware of the fact that some of the habits of the shrew were entirely different from his own. "Creatures of the Night" by Alfred W. Rees

The spirit of Marguerite was now roused, and all the powers of Europe could not tame the shrew. "Henry IV, Makers of History" by John S. C. Abbott

Stanley R. Avery's overture to "The Taming of the Shrew" produced by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. "Annals of Music in America" by Henry Charles Lahee

Usage in poetry
Let her, whom thou'rt resolv'd to court,
Be of good life and good report —
Her temper mild — her words be few;
Worse than a scorpion is a shrew!
If thou hast hir'd a maid that is a shrew,
And does not honour to her mistress pay,
The door to her, as 'twas to Hagar, shew,
And let thy wife have, as she ought, her way.
Rigged poker -stiff on her back
With a granite grin
This antique museum-cased lady
Lies, companioned by the gimcrack
Relics of a mouse and a shrew
That battened for a day on her ankle-bone.