a scolding nagging bad- tempered woman

small mouselike mammal with a long snout; related to moles

Wicked; malicious.

Originally, a brawling, turbulent, vexatious person of either sex, but now restricted in use to females; a brawler; a scold.

Any small insectivore of the genus Sorex and several allied genera of the family Sorecidae. 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.

To beshrew; to curse.

A scolding, brawling woman; any of small mouselike animals that dig or burrow in the ground.

A brawling, troublesome woman: a scold.

An ill- tempered woman; scold.

A scolding woman.

A small mouse- like animal.

An ill- tempered, brawling, turbulent, vexatious woman; a scold; a shrew- mouse.

A peevish, turbulent, vexatious woman; a scold.

1591. " Taming of a Shrew." – Bacon is Shake-Speare by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence

She wore no cloak or coat, but had thrown over her a short cape of scarlet cloth and shrew- mouse fur. – Four Arthurian Romances "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" by Chretien DeTroyes

We ourselves possess a shrew- mouse exquisitely wrought in bronze. – The Complete Historical Romances of Georg Ebers by Georg Ebers

Red shrew mouse G. Bennett 1: 8 ? – Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) by George Grey

Of the many wild animals, ranging in size from the great, powerful, timid grizzly bear, now almost extinct here, whose Indian name, by the way, is Yosemite, to the tiny shrew of the lowlands, the most frequently seen are the black or brown bear, and the deer, both of which, as compared with their kind in neighborhoods where hunting is permitted, are unterrified if not friendly. – The Book of the National Parks by Robert Sterling Yard

Likewise, he feared his wife, and particularly her mother, who was a shrew. – The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story by Various

While, however, we reluctantly accept the conclusion that Chaucer was unhappy as a husband, we must at the same time decline, because the husband was a poet, and one of the most genial of poets, to cast all the blame upon the wife, and to write her down a shrew. – Chaucer by Adolphus William Ward

I am thinking how I will be married to a shrew of a wife, who will beat me every evening and morning, and sometimes in the middle of the day. – Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica by James Boswell

Then, in faith, we'll re- enact a modern edition of 'The Taming of the Shrew. – Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West by William MacLeod Raine

A shrew- mouse also was caught. – A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 by Otto von Kotzebue

When we try to get a picture of one of these Hudson's Bay men gravely opening a shrew- mouse, mole, or " other small quadruped," while his chum pours in the aqua vitae or precious conversation water, we declare that science asks too much. – The New North by Agnes Deans Cameron

Ill fares the husband mated with a shrew, And her embraces very soon wax cold. – The Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles

Its chief advantage was that it seemed quite too stagnant to be anything but respectable, and the suppressed grumbling of the old shrew whom they routed out confirmed their estimate. – The Blood Red Dawn by Charles Caldwell Dobie

And I sure want my beautiful shrew. – Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West by William MacLeod Raine

The husbands of the shrew and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. – Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw

At the south corner of the Plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard- ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew- ash. – The-Natural-History-of-Selborne by White, Gilbert