Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Shrink
Shrink as from a haunted place.
—Anonymous
Shrinking like an old man into his shoulders.
—Anonymous
Shrinks inward like a walnut.
—Anonymous
Shrinks like a Yonkers celebrity when he hits Broadway.
—Anonymous
Shrunk like a withered hand.
—Philip James Bailey
Shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver.
—Charlotte Brontë
Shrink into a point like death.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Shrink up like a crushed snail.
—Robert Browning
Shrunken … like a withered branch.
—Buddha
Shrunk up like a bean in a pod.
—Alice Cary
Shrinking back, like one that had mistook.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Shrink,
As from a precipice’s brink.
—Eliza Cook
Shrink as a snail.
—Coventry Mysteries
Shrinks, like the sick moon at the wholesome morn.
—William Crashaw
Shrink like parchment in consuming flame.
—John Dryden
Shrinks as some fair tulip by a storm oppressed
Shrinks up and folds its silken arms to rest.
—John Dryden
Shrank
As one who sees a loathed sight.
—Maurice F. Egan
Shrank like the snow that watchers in the vale see narrowed on the height each summer morn.
—George Eliot
Shrank like a leaf in Fall.
—Eugene Field
Shrinking like a snail withdrawing into its shell.
—Herman Heijermans, Jr.
Shrunk away as a frost-bitten apple.
—Washington Irving
Shrunk away, within him, like a dried filbert in its shell.
—Washington Irving
Shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger.
—Mary Johnston
Shrank, like things with breath,
Whose ripeness feels the touch of death.
—C. F. Keary
Shrank as the beetle shrinks beneath the pin when village children stab him in their sport.
—Rudyard Kipling
Shrank, like boys, who, unaware,
Ranging the woods to start a hare,
Come to the mouth of the dark lair where,
Growling low, a fierce old bear
Lies amidst bones and blood.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay
Shrink as though Death were passing in his shroud.
—John Masefield
Shrank as at a prick of steel.
—George Meredith
Shrank—like parchment at the touch of flame.
—George Meredith
Shrink, as from a serpent in a knot of flowers.
—Henry Hart Milman
He shrinks, as from a viewless blow.
—Richard Monckton Milnes
Shrinking as violets do in summer ray.
—Thomas Moore
Shrink as though some cowardly sin were between them.
—Ouida
Shrank,
As a taper in sunlight sinks faint and aghast.
—T. Buchanan Read
Shrinks like scorched parchment from the fiery ordeal of true criticism.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Shrinks, as might love from scorn.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Shrunk away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel.
—William Makepeace Thackeray
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold.
—John T. Trowbridge
Shrink … like guilty things surprised.
—Edwin P. Whipple