Word.ws English Dictionary

Shrek

/ʃɹɛk/

Shrek noun: an extremely ugly person.

Noun

Shrek (plural Shreks)

  1. (derogatory, slang) An extremely ugly person.
    • 'Well, well, well, who have we got here? 'A very fat Shrek suddenly loomed up on them. 'Your host at your service,' he said, with a little bow.2012, Clodagh Murphy, Frisky Business
    • 'I don't want my sister to see you look like a mess, like an ugly Shrek.'2016, Jadyn Patrilita, Petimara Ualesi, Fear to Lose

Verb

Shrek (third-person singular simple present Shreks, present participle Shrekking, simple past and past participle Shrekked)

  1. (neologism, slang) To engage in Shrekking.
    • If you've fallen into this mindset and gotten "Shrekked," Chan says not to give up or go back to dating only people who fall within narrow beauty standards.2025 August 21, Charles Trepany, “The new dating term 'Shrekking' sounds innocent. It's not what you think”, in USA Today
    • There has been ample commentary on the trend, too, with one TikTok clip garnering more than 600 comments from people concurring that they have been “Shrekked”.2025 September 12, Olivia Petter, “Shrekking – or deliberately dating 'ugly' men – is a new low for modern love”, in The Independent

Forms of Shrek

Noun
pluralShreks
Verb
third-person singular presentShreks
present participleShrekking
past participleShrekked
pastShrekked

Origin of Shrek

From the fictional ogre Shrek, created by the American author William Steig for his 1990 picture book Shrek! and popularized by the DreamWorks computer-animated movie franchise, whose name derives from Yiddish שרעק (shrek, “fright”).

Words formed from Shrek

Questions about Shrek

What does Shrek mean?
Shrek means an extremely ugly person.
What part of speech is Shrek?
Shrek can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce Shrek?
Shrek is pronounced /ʃɹɛk/.
What is the plural of Shrek?
The plural of Shrek is Shreks.

Words near Shrek in the dictionary

  1. shreeves
  2. Shreffler
  3. Shrefflers
  4. Shreiner
  5. Shreiners
  6. Shrek
  7. Shrekked
  8. Shrekkie
  9. Shrekkies
  10. Shrekking
  11. Shrekky

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Shrek (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-Shrek.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Shrek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shrek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.