(intransitive, figuratively) To withdraw or retire, as from danger.
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What happier natures shrink at with affright, / The hard inhabitant contends is right.
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1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], London: Printed for J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC:
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They assisted us against the Thebans when you shrank from the task.
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1881, Benjamin Jowett, transl., Thucydides:
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The other patients in the ward, all but the Texan, shrank from him with a tenderhearted aversion from the moment they set eyes on him the morning after the night he had been sneaked in.
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1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 169: