shrewとは 意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• enPR: shro͞o, shrū, IPA: /ʃɹuː/, /ʃɹɪu̯/
• 韻: -uː

語源 1

From 中期英語 *schrewe, from 古期英語 sċrēawa (“shrew”), from Proto-Germanic *skrawwaz (“thin; meagre; frail”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut; shorten; skimp”). Cognates include Old High German scrawaz (“dwarf”), Norwegian skrugg (“dwarf”).

名詞

shrew (plural shrews)

1. Any of numerous small, mouselike, chiefly nocturnal, mammals of the family Soricidae.
2. Certain other small mammals that resemble true shrews.
3. (derogatory) An ill-tempered, nagging woman: a scold.
   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

     The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife—shrill, vehement, and fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names, she called him.

   • 1959, Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz:

     His wife was a shrew with warts on her face and she spoke to him sharply when others were present, but Simcha did not complain.

   • 1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 88:

     “Cease thy squalling, thou shrew!”

使用する際の注意点

The best-known use of the meaning 'ill-tempered woman' is probably from The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare.

別の表記

• shrow (obsolete)

同意語

• (mouselike mammal): ranny (obsolete), soricid
• (nagging woman): See Thesaurus:shrew

下位語

• (mouselike mammal): common shrew

派生語

語源 2

From 中期英語 schrewen (“to make evil; curse”), from 中期英語 schrewe, schrowe, screwe (“wicked; evil; an evil person”), from 古期英語 *scrēawa (“wicked person”, literally “biter”). Perhaps ultimately from the same word as Etymology 1 above.

動詞

shrew (third-person singular simple present shrews, present participle shrewing, simple past and past participle shrewed)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To beshrew; to curse.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story via the 'title' parameter)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     I shrew myself.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

アナグラム

• Rhews, wersh