Shrewe

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A tiny insect-eating mammal resembling a mouse with a pointed snout ; a bad-tempered, scolding woman who constantly quarrels
2. A small, long-nosed mammal that hunts insects and worms ; a sharp-tongued, quarrelsome woman who nags
3. A minute mouse-like creature with a pointed nose and voracious appetite ; an ill-tempered female who is given to scolding and complaining

Etymology: Before it described a bad-tempered person, this word named a small animal. Old English "scrēawa" meant the shrew-mouse, a creature that looks like a mouse but has a long pointed snout and feeds on insects. English folklore held that its bite was poisonous and that it could make any animal it ran over lame. Trees called shrew-ash were believed to cure that lameness. In Middle English the word came to mean a wicked or malicious person, with no particular link to women. Over time the sense narrowed to a bad-tempered woman who scolds, and that is the meaning that survives. Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" shows the term already in common use in that sense.