shrimp
/ʃrɪmp
/noun (plural same or shrimps)
1A small free-swimming crustacean with an elongated body, typically marine and frequently of commercial importance as food.
- Pandalus, Crangon, and other genera, order Decapoda.
- Eumalacostraca is the group that contains most of the animals the general public recognize as crustaceans, such as shrimp, crabs, lobsters.
- The trip north is slow for the cow-calf pair because of stops for nursing and the occasional meal of mysid shrimp or other food encountered.
1.1 informal, derogatory A small, physically weak person: I can handle a shrimp like him any time...
- Are you sure you want to hang out with that shrimp?
verb [no object] (usually go shrimping)
Fish for shrimps: some families still go shrimping off the coast at Lytham at Trebetherick you paddle on Daymer Bay or shrimp off Gully...
- "We grew up with people who shrimped for a living," she says.
- They hunted alligator and went shrimping and had their own little wooden shrimp boats.
- A lot of people have gone shrimping.
Origin
Middle English: probably related to Middle Low German schrempen 'to wrinkle', Middle High German schrimpfen 'to contract', also to scrimp.