shrinkage

noun

shrink·​age ˈshriŋ-kij How to pronounce shrinkage (audio)
 especially Southern  ˈsriŋ-
1
: the act or process of shrinking
2
a
: the loss in weight of livestock during shipment and in the process of preparing the meat for consumption
b
: the loss of goods especially by theft
inventory shrinkage
3
: the amount lost by shrinkage

Examples of shrinkage in a Sentence

The shrinkage in contributions is significant. a shrinkage of 10 percent the shrinkage of the polar ice caps
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Multiverse’s core business is compressing open-source LLMs with such extreme shrinkage that most of its versions can run on CPUs, or central processing units, of the kind used in smartphones and regular computers, rather than GPUs, or graphics processing units. Vivienne Walt, Fortune, 9 Oct. 2025 Materials could withstand 20 times more pressure Yiming Ji, the first author of the study, also underlined that their materials could withstand 20 times more pressure compared to those produced with previous methods, while exhibiting only 20% shrinkage versus 60-90%. Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 9 Oct. 2025 Prostatic Atrophy Prostatic atrophy refers to the shrinkage or deterioration of the prostate gland. Md Published, PEOPLE, 2 Oct. 2025 The designer promotes it as being as soft as cashmere, but with no shrinkage. Catherine Salfino, Sourcing Journal, 26 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for shrinkage

Word History

First Known Use

1800, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of shrinkage was in 1800

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Cite this Entry

“Shrinkage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shrinkage. Accessed 17 Oct. 2025.

Kids Definition

shrinkage

noun
shrink·​age ˈshriŋ-kij How to pronounce shrinkage (audio)
: the amount by which something shrinks or becomes less

More from Merriam-Webster on shrinkage

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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