Verb

(shunn)

To avoid, especially persistently.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington

, title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty, or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the mighty so far.}}

To escape (a threatening evil, an unwelcome task etc).

To screen, hide.

To shove, push.

Verb

To cause to become smaller.

The dryer shrank my sweater.

To become smaller; to contract.

This garment will shrink when wet.

* Francis Bacon

I have not found that water, by mixture of ashes, will shrink or draw into less room.

* Dryden

And shrink like parchment in consuming fire.

To cower or flinch.

Molly shrank away from the blows of the whip.

To draw back; to withdraw.

* Milton

The Libya Hammon shrinks his horn.

(figuratively) To withdraw or retire, as from danger.

* Alexander Pope

What happier natures shrink at with affright, / The hard inhabitant contends is right.

* Jowett (Thucyd.)

They assisted us against the Thebans when you shrank from the task.