Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew has probably helped to keep this word alive, and to associate it almost exclusively with women. In Shakespeare’s own time it could equally well be applied to a man, one who was felt to be malignant, but...

A shrew gets her wish but suffers in the getting. (Irish) A shrew of a wife may yet be in the right. (Yiddish) A shrew will get her wish though her soul will not get mercy....

Shrews are small, superficially mouse-like mammals of the family Soricidae. Although their external appearance is generally that of a long-nosed mouse, the shrews are not rodents and not closely related: the shrew family is part of the order...