Word.ws English Dictionary

shrug

UK/ˈʃɹʌɡ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈʃɹɐɡ/

shrug noun: a lifting of the shoulders to signal indifference or a casual lack of knowledge about something.

shrug: a lifting of the shoulders to signal indifference or a casual lack of knowledge about something
Image: Dazzledog, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

shrug (plural shrugs)

  1. A lifting of the shoulders to signal indifference or a casual lack of knowledge about something.
    • He dismissed my comment with a shrug.
  2. A cropped, cardiganlike garment with short or long sleeves, typically knitted.

Verb

shrug (third-person singular simple present shrugs, present participle shrugging, simple past and past participle shrugged)

  1. (ambitransitive) To raise (the shoulders) to express uncertainty, lack of concern, (formerly) dread, etc.
    • I asked him for an answer and he just shrugged.
    • When he saw the problem, he just shrugged and started fixing it.

shrug meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Telugu and Kannada

shrug in Urdu

کندھے اچکانا

shrug in Bengali

কাঁধ ঝাঁকানো

shrug in Telugu

to shrug
ఎగరవేయు egaravēyu

shrug in Kannada

ಭುಜ ಏರಿಸು, ಹೆಗಲುಹಾರಿಸು, ಭುಜಕುಣಿಸು, ಭುಜಹಾರಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
shrug in Arabic
هَزَّ كَتِفَيْن hazza katifayn
shrug in Persian
شانه بالا انداختن šâne bâlâ andâxtan

Examples of shrug in a sentence

  • The hunter fired at the geese and missed, then shrugged his shoulders and chambered another cartridge.
  • He shrugged off the insults and proceeded despite them.
  • You can shrug by shortening up your shoulders and express anger or disgust by shortening up the upper lip.

All 40 example sentences with shrug

Forms of shrug

Noun
pluralshrugs
Verb
third-person singular presentshrugs
present participleshrugging
past participleshrugged
pastshrugged

Plural of shrug: shrugs

Origin of shrug

From Middle English schruggen, shrukken, probably of North Germanic origin related to Danish skrugge, skrukke (“to stoop; crouch”), Swedish skruga, skrukka (“to huddle; crouch”), all from or related to Old Norse skrykkva, from Proto-Germanic *skrinkwaną. Compare also Old English scrincan (“to shrink”). More at shrink.

Words formed from shrug

Words that rhyme with shrug

23 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shrug

What does shrug mean?
Shrug means a lifting of the shoulders to signal indifference or a casual lack of knowledge about something.
What is shrug in Urdu?
Shrug in Urdu is کندھے اچکانا. See Shrug meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is shrug?
Shrug can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce shrug?
Shrug is pronounced /ˈʃɹʌɡ/ (UK).
What is the plural of shrug?
The plural of shrug is shrugs.

Words near shrug in the dictionary

  1. shrubsteppe
  2. shrubsteppes
  3. shrubwood
  4. Shrubya
  5. shruff
  6. shrug
  7. shrug off
  8. shrugged
  9. shrugged off
  10. shrugger
  11. shruggers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shrug (page history and authors); shrug (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shrug (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ఎగరవేయు (Telugu) (page history and authors); shrug (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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

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