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shrink from sth
— phrasal verb with shrink /ʃrɪŋk/ verb (shrank, shrunk)Definition
› to avoid doing something that is unpleasant or difficult: We must not shrink from our responsibilities. [+ -ing verb] We will not shrink from using force.Avoiding actionLaziness and lazy people
(Definition of shrink from sth from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
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You are looking at an entry to do with Avoiding action, but you might be interested in these topics from the Doing and achieving topic area:
- Abstaining and refraining
- Acting and acts
- Becoming better
- Cancelling and interrupting
- Competing and contending (non-sporting)
- Coping and not coping
- Delaying and wasting time
- Describing the leading position
- Efficient and effective
- Expressions telling people to hurry up
- Failing and doing badly
- Failures
- Getting involved for one's own benefit or against others' will
- Hesitating
- Higher and lower points of achievement
- Hurrying and doing things quickly
- Making progress and advancing
- Making things better
- Performing a function
- Potential
- Reacting and responding
- Repeating an action
- Succeeding, achieving and fulfilling
- Success and achievements
- Successful (things or people)
- Surpassing in quality or number
- Taking part and getting involved
- Trying and making an effort
- Unsuccessful (people and things)
- Waiting
- Ways of achieving things
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SMART Thesaurus: Avoiding action
Synonyms and related words:
- avoid sth like the plague idiom
- avoid verb
- avoidance noun
- bottle out phrasal verb
- chicken out phrasal verb
- eschew verb
- evade verb
- evasion noun
- fiddle about/around phrasal verb
- fight shy of idiom
- flinch from sth/doing sth phrasal verb
- malinger verb
- mess around phrasal verb (SPEND TIME)
- miss noun (NOT DO)
- miss verb (NOT DO)
- not soil your hands idiom
- weasel out of sth phrasal verb
- wimp out phrasal verb
- wriggle off the hook idiom
- wriggle out of sth phrasal verb
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to refuse to accept something or someone because you feel that they are not worth having
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