A shrew is a small, insectivorous and carnivorous mammal of the genus Sorex. The common shrew, Sorex araneus, is found across Eurasia, from Mongolia to Britain. They resemble mice but are not rodents, being more closely related to moles and hedgehogs. But shrew also has a misogynist sense of a nagging, scolding, unpleasant woman. This latter sense of shrew is perhaps best known to people today through Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew. And this latter sense gave rise to the adjective shrewd, which now means clever or keen-witted, but originally meant something more malicious.
These two senses are difficult to reconcile. The general opinion is that the scold sense is a metaphorical development of the animal sense, coming from a folk belief that the creature wielded some malignant influence. Alternatively, the scold sense could have an independent origin, a borrowing of the Middle High German word schröuwel, meaning devil. Adding to the word’s strangeness is that it, or the animal sense at least, has no cognates in other Germanic languages, and its root meaning is unclear.
The name of the animal comes to us from the Old English screwa, a word that is attested in a number of Latin-Old English glossaries. Strangely, this sense isn’t attested in Middle English, reappearing in print in the sixteenth century. (There are many gaps in the early medieval corpus, but the Middle English corpus is quite large and filled with animal terms, so the word’s absence is odd.) One of the early reappearances of the animal sense is in Thomas Elyot’s 1542 Latin-English dictionary, in which Elyot gives a hint of the folkloric malign nature of the small creature:
Mus Arancus, a kynde of myse called a shrew, whyche yf it goo ouer a beastes backe, he shall be lame in the chyne, yf he doo byte any thynge, it swelleth vp to the hart, and the beaste dyeth.
(Mus Arancus, a kind of mouse called a shrew, which if it goes over a beast’s back, the beast shall be lame in the spine, if he does bite anything, the beast bitten swells up, and the beast bitten dies.)
While the animal sense isn’t attested in Middle English, the other sense of the word is. The earliest uses of the word shreue are in the sense of a rascal, an undisciplined child, an evil-doer, but it is not specifically associated with women. An early appearance is in the debate-poem The Owl and the Nightingale from c. 1275:
Vor nere ich neuer no þe betere,
Yif ich mid chauling & mid chatere,
Home schende, & mid fule worde,
So herdes doþ, oþer mid schitworde.
Ne lust me with þe screwen chide:
Forþi ich wende from hom wide.
Hit is a wise monne dome,
& hi hit segget wel ilome,
Þat “me ne chide wit þe gidie”
Ne “wit þan ofne me ne ʒonie.”
(For I would not be better off if I abused them with idle talk and chatter and with foul words, as shepherds do, or with shit-words. I don’t want to quarrel with the shrews, therefore I give them a wide berth. It’s the judgment of wise men, & they say it often, that “there is no point in arguing with an idiot” than there is “yawning wider than an oven.”)
Shreue could also refer to a devil or a sinner, as in the life of St. James found in the South English Legendary, written c.1300. In this passage, a sinner kills himself and the devil claims his soul:
A-ʒein þe deuel he cam a-doun : and bad þane schrewe a-bide,
And seid, “þou berst more þane þin owe. : þat i schal kuyþe þe.
Ʒwi hast þou mine pilegrim be-traid? : gret schame þou dest me.”
“Ʒe. al for nauʒt,” quath þe schrewe : “thou art hidere i-come[”] :
[“]In his sunne him-sulf he a-slouʒ : and þare-with ich him habbe i-nome.
Ne may no man in dedlich sunne : in-to heuene wende.
Ase wel þou miʒht gon hom a-ʒein : he is min with-outen enden.”
(Again, the devil he came down and bid that the shrew wait, and said “you carry more than your own [sin], that I shall let you know. Why have you betrayed my pilgrim? You do me great shame.” “Yes, all for nothing,” said the shrew, “you have come here.” “In his sin he killed himself, and therefore I have taken him. No one in mortal sin can go to heaven, any more easily as he can go home again. He is mine without end.”
It’s about this time that the adjective shrewd appears with the meaning of wicked or malicious. In a passage about Pilate’s judgment of Christ, shrewd is used as an antisemitic slur from the Southern Passion, a poem that is part of the South English Legendary, written c.1280:
And Pilatus nas no gyw; Iustise þey he were,
Ak was of Paynyme; and þorw þemperour ysend ffram Rome
ffor to entempry þe gywes; and hold hem to riȝte dome.
Out aȝen þe shrewede gywes; pilatus wende anon
To affonge hare acoupementʒ; whanne he nolde yn gon.
(And Pilate was no Jew; ruler though he was,
But rather he was a pagan; and by the emperor sent from Rome
To restrain the Jews; and hold them to honest judgment.
Out again [among] the shrewd Jews, Pilate soon went
To hear their accusations when they would not come in.)
This sense of evil could also be applied to dangerous animals or things, as well as to misbehaving children.
The misogynistic association with women appears by the early fourteenth century, as can be seen in this lyric, “Lord that Lenest Us Lyf.,” found in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 2253:
Nou hath prude the pris
In everuche plawe;
By mony wymmon unwis
Y sugge mi sawe,
For yef a ledy lyne is
Leid after lawe,
Uch a strumpet that ther is
Such drahtes wol drawe
In prude:
Uch a screwe wol hire shrude
Thah he nabbe nout a smoke hire foule ers to hude!
(Today, pride takes the praise in every amusement; by the example of many unwise women I state my opinion, for if a lady’s clothing is fitted after fashion, each strumpet that there is will follow such tricks out of pride, each shrew will adorn herself up, though she hasn’t a smock to hide her foul ass.)
And the sense of a nagging or disagreeable wife can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, c.1395. where the host, Harry Bailey, responds to the merchant’s tale with the following:
"Ey! Goddes mercy!" seyde oure Hooste tho,
"Now swich a wyf I pray God kepe me fro!
Lo, whiche sleightes and subtilitees
In wommen been! For ay as bisy as bees
Been they, us sely men for to deceyve,
And from the soothe evere wol they weyve;
By this Marchauntes tale it preveth weel.
But doutelees, as trewe as any steel
I have a wyf, though that she povre be,
But of hir tonge, a labbyng shrewe is she,
And yet she hath an heep of vices mo.
(“Ah, God’s mercy!” said our host then, “Now such a wife I pray God keep me from! Lo, what slights and subtleties are in women! For they are always as busy as bees, to deceive us innocent men, and from the truth they will ever waver; by this merchant’s tale it is well proven. But doubtless, as true as any steel I have a wife, though she is poor, but of her tongue she is a blabbing shrew, and yet she has a heap of other vices.”)
The adjective shrewd was also applied specifically to scolding or nagging women at about this time. From John Trevisa’s c.1387 translation of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon:
Socrates hadde tweie schrewed wifes þat would alway chide and stryve, and hadde ofte stryf by twene hem for Socrates.
(Socrates had two shrewd wives that would always quarrel and argue, and there was often strife between them over Socrates.)
Higden’s original Latin uses litigiosissimas (most quarresome). Another, anonymous, Middle English translator uses litigious and malicious.
But by the early sixteenth century, shrewd was being used to mean clever or keen-witted, an outgrowth of the idea of a malicious act being sharp and penetrating. This sense appears in a 1525 interlude by John Rastell on the qualities of women, although while the attitude displayed here is sexist, the adjective shrewd is applied to men, not women:
Gyff tokyns of loue by many subtell ways
Semyng to be shepe and serpently shrewd
Craft in them renewyng that neuer decays
Theyre seyenge sightynge prouokynge theyr plays
O what payn is to fulfyll theyre appetyte
And to accomplysh theyre wanton delytis
(Give tokens of love by many subtle ways
Seeming to be sheep and serpently shrewd
Craft in them renewing that never decays
Their saying sighting provoking their plays
O what a pain it is to fulfill their appetite
And to accomplish their wanton delights.)
Over time, the adjective shrewd has lost its misogynistic undertones.
Regardless of whether this misogynistic sense of shrew comes from a slander of an innocent animal or from an old German word for devil, its derogatory and slanderous nature makes it not a good word to use unless, one is referring to the title of the Shakespeare play, and even then, one should avoid it as much as possible.
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