Other forms: shrimps
A shrimp is a small pink sea animal that curls up, popular in seafood dishes. Peeled shrimp, a shrimp cocktail, catch shrimp.
They are grey until cooked and turn pink because heat releases a pigment bound up in the shell protein — the colour is there all along. American English calls almost all of them shrimp where British English says prawn for the larger kinds. Note that the word once also meant a puny person.
1nounshrimpA small edible sea creature.
“We had grilled shrimp with garlic and rice at the seaside restaurant.”
shrimp is a sea creature.
Also accepted in games: prawn
Middle English schrimpe may be related to a Germanic root meaning shrivelled. The sense of a puny person is as old as the animal one.
Proto-Germanic
*skrimpaz
Middle English
schrimpe
English, today
shrimp
From Middle English schrimpe, from Proto-Germanic skrimpaz, from skrimpaną. 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-. See also Middle High German schrimpf (“a scratch, minor wound”), Norwegian skramp (“thin horse, thin man”); also Old English sċrimman (“to shrink”) and scrimp, Middle High German schrimpfen (“to shrink, dry up”), Swedish skrympa (“to shrink”); also Lithuanian skrembti (“to crust over, stiffen”), and possibly Albanian shkrumb* (“embers, ashes; crumble”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA