Meanings
- uncountableeconomicsThe practice of products being made with lower-quality materials so they break down quickly, forcing consumers to buy replacements more often.First known use 2022
Skimpflation involves a reformulation or other reduction in quality. The term shitflation, which refers to the case of maintaining the price of a product while reducing quality, can also be found in the literature (Giner 2022).
[2024 May 29, Jacek Białek, Anna Bobel, Dagmara Oprych-Franków, “Immeasurability of shrinkflation in the CPI?”, in 18th meeting of the Ottawa group on price indices2 more examples
What shitflation (and shrinkflation) speaks to is the dissolution of our methodologies to calculate price increases. In that regard, it is an insidious phenomenon, reminiscent of the breakdown in price signalling that helped contribute to the fall of the USSR.
2022 October 6, Dario Garcia Giner, “When Currencies (and Nations) Fall; The Case of Lebanon’s Bad Data”, in The Blind Spot, archived from the original on 06 Oct 2022Perhaps the most insidious type of inflation is sh*tflation ^([sic]) or crap-flation. This is when a product decreases in quality. So, for instance, you might notice that new shoes aren’t as durable as they used to make them.
2024 July 1, Jonathan Garner, “Inflation vs. Shrinkflation vs. Skimpflation vs. Sh*tflation”, in Medium
Origin
Cite this entry
shitflation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shitflation
“shitflation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shitflation. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shitflation,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shitflation.
Source: shitflation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.