"male equvalent" of a 'shrew' (2025)

Hi,

Is there a "male equivalent" of a shrew in English? (like in The Taming of the Shrew, and similar contexts).

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary says:

Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary said:

shrew noun (WOMAN ) /ʃruː/ n [C]
OLD-FASHIONED DISAPPROVING an unpleasant woman who is easily annoyed and who argues a lot

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So is there also a (specific) word for an "unpleasant man who is easily annoyed and who argues a lot" - or is at least the "arguing-a-lot" part precisely what would make a man... well... just what a man is supposed to be like, and the one who's responsible for making him annoyed in the first place - if he is annoyed - would normally be the woman?

Thanks

prof d'anglais said:

Trusting I don't get my wrist slapped for referring to a competitive forum, this same question was asked here. It seems the nearest we can get, is accusing a man of behaving like an old woman. It still strikes me as being overly sexist though...

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But that is not the equivalent of a shrew. An "old woman" is a man who is fussy about trivial things - quite possibly irritable, quite possibly a grouch, but lacking the bitterness and venom that is an essential element of being a "shrew".

grubble said:

He could be a grouch

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I think this is quite a good suggestion. I can't think of a closer one - it seems that most such terms have implicit sexist overtones.

I wonder about calling a man a "little bitch" in the sense of a male shrew.

I probably would use "like a shrew..."

Mike, you are acting like a shrew and you know everyone hates it when you behave like that.

Packard said:

I probably would use "like a shrew..."

Mike, you are acting like a shrew and you know everyone hates it when you behave like that.

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So is "shrew" a current word in the US?

prof d'anglais said:

I agree Andygc but does that mean men are incapable of being bitter and venomous? Another characteristic of a shrew is nagging. Nag can be attached to men just as easily as women.

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Yes they can be equally malign, but I was referring to the term "old woman" applied to a man, which does not have the meaning of "shrew" as applied to a woman.

Despite the derivation that grubble referred to, "shrew" has been used exclusively as a term to apply to a woman for perhaps more than 500 years.

I think that the answer to the original question is that there is no single word that can describe a man so effectively as "shrew" has been used for a woman with similar personality traits. Perhaps a reflection of the way society was ordered?

Andygc said:

Perhaps a reflection of the way society was ordered?

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I agree Andygc (this's becoming quite a habit between you and I). In fact discussing this with a French student this morning we discovered several French words that are uni-sexual -garçonnière, women do not have their equivalent and obviously maitresse is equally one-sided but slowly and surely, the tide is turning. I'd ask for suggestions for the female equivalents of the above but perhaps in the French forum...

djmc said:

Not quite the same but one could refer to a man one disapproves of as a male chauvinist pig.

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That is usually a term aimed at males believed to be sexist, no? It's a very specific term in my eyes.

Uncle Bob said:

I agree with timpeac that grubble's "grouch" is a good suggestion and I would find it strange if a man were referred to as a "shrew". One could, instead of using a single term, list the required characteristics: a wining, bad-tempered (old) bugger. ("Old" isn't a necessary characteristic but it is frequently used even when the person isn't old).

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I would hope bugger isn't a characteristic either...