Shrinkage is the shrinking itself, or how much something has got smaller. Cotton can show shrinkage after a hot wash: the jumper that fitted now sits higher on the arms. Wood, cloth, and plastic all do this when they dry or cool, and factories measure the shrinkage so lids still fit. The ending turns the verb shrink into a noun for the action or the amount. Though actually, in shops the same word has a quieter second life. Store managers say shrinkage for stock that disappears — stolen, broken, or just not there when they count. They are not talking about the boxes getting smaller; they are talking about loss, and it is a soft workplace word for a hard problem. In money news you may also hear that an economy shows shrinkage, meaning the whole thing is getting smaller. The core picture is still the same: something has reduced.