What is the simple past tense of "shrink"?

In My Humble Opinion
1

What is the past tense of “shrink”? I don’t mean the past perfect, the past progressive, the past habitual, or anything else . . . ONLY THE SIMPLE PAST TENSE.

2

The preterite is properly “shrank.” But now you mention it, I think I use “shrunk” for the preterite sometimes. A dialect thing?

3

Shrink present participle
Shrunk past
Shrunken past participle (US)
Shrunken past participle (UK)

Shrunken adjective

4

I voted “shrank”, but looking at Paul’s answer, might it be different depending on whether you’re using it as a transitive or intransitive verb?

5

I voted “shrunk” as the simple past tense.

Could the difference in usage (shrunk/shrank) be British English vs American English?

I guess I use “shrunk” because of the word “shrunken” and there being no “shranken”.

6

Can’t vote because you missed the “dead psychiatrist” option.

7

It shrank.
It has shrunk.

8

Shrank.

9

I shrank when it shrunk.

10

Shrönk.

11

Honey I Shrunk The Kids.

12

“Don’t fit no more.”

13

I learned shrink, shrank, shrunk. Don’t tell me the nuns were wrong!

14

That’s how I use it. Just like drink/drank/drunk.

15

Transitive or intransitive?

If I fuck up the laundry, I can say of my T-shirt: “It shrank!” (‘It’ is the subject, no direct object)

Rick Moranis can say: “I shrunk the kids.” (‘I’ is the subject, ‘the kids’ is the direct object)

16

Missed the edit window. I posted my knee-jerk answer before looking it up.

From the wiktionary page on shrunk:

*In casual use, found even in careful speech, interchangeable with shrank; in careful formal use, only used for past participle “I have shrunk”, while shrank is used for the past tense “I shrank”. Compare sank/sunk. Grammatically, shrink is a Germanic strong verb, hence conjugated via ablaut (change of vowel, rather than adding -ed), but these are irregular in modern English, hence the inconsistent usage.

The 1989 movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (formally: Honey, I Shrank the Kids or Honey, I’ve Shrunk the Kids) is an example of the prevalence of the casual form.*

So I want to change my vote from “It depends” to “shrank.”

I also want to say that after looking at the words shrank and shrunk so many times in this thread, they have ceased to look like actual words. Is there a name for when that happens?

17

Is this why I only think of using the word “shrunk” in indicate that someone/thing did something to another object/person? It shrank. He shrunk it. I can’t wrap my brain around something having shrunk on its own.

18

Probably. We were already apparently saying it wrong and then that movie didn’t help.