Etymograph

English

shrimp

Shrimp comes from Middle English schrimpe ‘shrimp, puny person’.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500schrimpe‘shrimp, puny person’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1851shrimp

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500schrimpe‘shrimp, puny person’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1851shrimp

Earliest quotation: 1851, Sarah Rutledge, A Lady of Charleston: “Butter well a deep dish, upon which place a…”

The story

From Middle English schrimpe (‘shrimp, puny person’), possibly from or related to Middle Low German schrempen (‘to wrinkle’), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaz (‘shrivelled’), from Proto-Germanic *skrimpaną (‘to shrivel’), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerbʰ-.

Every English word from Middle English schrimpe

Today it means

noun Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a long abdomen.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Middle English schrimpe / shrimp

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