I used to know the meaning of the verb ‘shrink’ as ‘to become smaller’ but I never know that there is also a noun ‘shrink’ as in the following sentence:
So you’re a shrink , huh? She would sure be glad I’m talking to you.
What does the underlined word mean?
Shrink is an informal word for psychologist or psychiatrist.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEFL listening lectures: A lecture from an arts class (2) [YSaerTTEW443543]
I used to wonder where the term ‘shrink’ came from. This is what I’ve just found:
I believe that the WWII campaigns in New Guinea drew the public’s attention to the N. G headhunters’ practice of removing the skull and contents from the heads of victims, sewing shut the eyelids and mouth, followed by a prolonged exposure to smoke until the remaining integument had shrunk to the size of a baseball. The head was filled
The media called these headhunters “headshrinkers”. The term was common in the 50s, the heyday of psychoanalysis, and was soon being applied to analysts and other therapists.
Eugene Kaplan
Synonyms for ‘psychiatrist’ (definition: mental doctor):
analyst, clinician, couch doctor, deficiency expert, doctor, guru, headpeeper, headshrinker, nut doctor, psychoanalyst, psychologist, psychotherapist, shrink, squirrel, therapist
Synonyms for ‘analyst’ (definition: examiner):
bean counter, examiner, guru, head shrinker, inquisitor, investigator, number cruncher, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, questioner, shrink.
Now, ‘bean counter’ is intriguing. But all I’ve been able to find is the following explanation from The Word Detective:
“Bean counter” has an interesting history. It seems to have first appeared in the mid-1970s in the U.S., and its original use was simply as a vivid synonym for “accountant,” especially one who brooked no nonsense. Its first known occurrence in print was in a 1975 Forbes magazine article that referred to “a smart, tightfisted and austere ‘bean counter’ accountant from rural Kentucky,” though we can assume the quotation marks meant the writer had heard the term in use before the date of the article. In any case, the allusion is clearly to an accountant so dedicated to detail that he or she counts everything, down to the last small, but still important, bean.
By the 1980s, however, most appearances of “bean counter” in the media were taking on a derogatory tone, and “bean counter” is now frequently used to mean a nitpicker who, lost in the numbers, fails to see the “big picture.” Congressional budget battles of recent years, for example, have been awash in accusations of “bean counting,” often leveled by defenders of projects labeled wasteful by their political “bean counting” opponents.
In the retail field, “shrink” also means something like a reduction in profit margin from errors or failure to keep costs down.
Alan
April 15, 2006, 7:29am
5
An interesting use of this word as a verb is to describe reluctance or hesitation/shyness to do something. I particularly like the expression: I shrink to think, meaning I cannot imagine. There is also the expression shrinking violet describing someone very shy and bashful.
Alan