Does osmosis shrink or swell?
We call the movement or diffusion of water osmosis, as was mentioned above. When water moves out of a cell, the cell shrinks; likewise, when water moves into a cell, the cell swells.
If the solution outside of the cell is hypertonic, then it is more concentrated in solute than the inside of the cell. As a result, water will flow out of the cell and into the hypertonic solution due to osmosis, thereby causing the cell to shrink.
A hypertonic solution has increased solute, and a net movement of water outside causing the cell to shrink. A hypotonic solution has decreased solute concentration, and a net movement of water inside the cell, causing swelling or breakage.
Because there is a higher concentration of water outside the cell, water enters the cell by OSMOSIS. In this case too much water enters and the cell swells to the point of bursting open.
The water potential of the salt solution, being hypertonic, is less than that of the cytoplasm of the cell. Hence, water comes out of the cell through osmosis and protoplast shrinks.
In biology, osmosis is the movement of water molecules from a solution with a high concentration of water molecules to a solution with a lower concentration of water molecules, through a cell's partially permeable membrane.
A hypotonic solution causes a cell to swell, whereas a hypertonic solution causes a cell to shrink.
Osmosis is the movement of water from a high concentration area to a low concentration area across a semi-permeable membrane, that is to say, the net movement of water down their concentration gradient. The concentration gradient is the substance's concentration difference between two regions.
The rate of osmosis is directly proportional to the surface area to volume ratio, temperature, and concentration gradient and is inversely proportional to the particle size. The surface area-to-volume ratio of a cell increases as its size decreases.
Isotonic solutions contain equal concentrations of impermeable solutes on either side of the membrane and so the cell neither swells nor shrinks.
Do all cells swell in hypotonic solution?
A cell that does not have a rigid cell wall, such as a red blood cell, will swell and lyse (burst) when placed in a hypotonic solution. Cells with a cell wall will swell when placed in a hypotonic solution, but once the cell is turgid (firm), the tough cell wall prevents any more water from entering the cell.
Hypertonic: The solution with the higher concentration of solutes. Hypotonic: The solution with the lower concentration of solutes.

Cell swelling, also known as hydropic degeneration, is the earliest and most universal indicator of potentially reversible cellular injury. Cell swelling, to put this lesson briefly, occurs as a result of too much water moving into the cells as a result of some injury.
Cytolysis, or osmotic lysis, occurs when a cell bursts due to an osmotic imbalance that has caused excess water to diffuse into the cell. Water can enter the cell by diffusion through the cell membrane or through selective membrane channels called aquaporins, which greatly facilitate the flow of water.
Cellular swelling (synonyms: hydropic change, vacuolar degeneration, cellular edema) is an acute reversible change resulting as a response to nonlethal injuries. It is an intracytoplasmic accumulation of water due to incapacity of the cells to maintain the ionic and fluid homeostasis.
A cell placed into a hypotonic solution will swell and expand until it eventually burst through a process known as cytolysis. These three examples of different solute concentrations provide an illustration of the spectrum of water movement based on solute concentration through the process of osmosis.
Plasmolysis is the process resulting in the net efflux of water molecules via osmosis. A cell that has undergone plasmolysis is characterized by the shrinking of protoplasm.
The loss of cell volume or cell shrinkage has been a morphological hallmark of the programmed cell death process known as apoptosis.
Osmosis is the transport of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane that separates two solutions of differing solute concentration. During osmosis, the solvent moves from the solution that is lower in solute concentration to the solution that is higher in solute concentration.
In simple words, osmosis is the movement of water through a special mixture of solutes like salt particles within the solvent. In osmosis, water moves from an area of higher concentration to lower concentration through a selectively permeable membrane.
What causes a cell to shrink?
A hypertonic solution has increased solute, and a net movement of water outside causing the cell to shrink.
Cell swelling occurs when the cell loses its ability to precisely control the influx of sodium (Na+) ions and water and efflux of potassium (K+) ions to the cytosol.
Osmosis: Osmosis is the movement of solvent particles across a semipermeable membrane from a dilute solution into a concentrated solution. The solvent moves to dilute the concentrated solution and equalize the concentration on both sides of the membrane.
It is a process in which solvent molecules move across from the region of high concentration to the region of lower concentration. The molecules that move in osmosis are liquid, and their movement is slower than in diffusion. Osmosis is a random and unidirectional biophysical process.
Osmosis is when water molecules travel across a cell membrane, moving to an area of higher concentration to one of a lower concentration so there is a balanced amount of water inside and outside the cell.
Surface Area - The larger the surface area, the more space for the molecules to move easily across; the smaller the area, the more restricted the movements of the molecules and the slower the movement.
Osmosis can affect the size and shape of cells, depending on differences in water concentration across the membrane. You can think of this as the cells gaining or losing "pressure" like miniature ballons.
Diffusion is effective over a specific distance and limits the size that an individual cell can attain.
A hypotonic solution causes a cell to swell, whereas a hypertonic solution causes a cell to shrink.
Water in cells moves toward the highest concentration of salt. If there is more salt in a cell than outside it, the water will move through the membrane into the cell, causing it to increase in size, swelling up as the water fills the cell in its imperative to combine with the salt.
What does hypotonic mean in osmosis?
A hypotonic solution is a solution that has lower osmotic pressure than another solution to which it is compared. It may also mean a solution that contains a lower amount of solute as compared with the solute concentration in the other solution across a semipermeable membrane.
The cell will enlarge as it absorbs water through osmosis in the hypotonic fluid.
The osmotic effect causes a flow of water from the weak solution to the strong solution. Thus water on the outside of concrete (almost pure, i.e. a weak solution) is drawn into the pores where there is a stronger solution.
In this process, the water molecule moves from a region of higher solvent concentration to the region of lower solvent concentration. The energy which drives this process is called osmotic pressure. Osmosis is of great importance in biological processes in plants and animals both. Thus, the correct answer is option D.
Cell swelling occurs when the cell loses its ability to control the movement of ions and water into and out of the cytosol precisely.
Osmosis is a special type of diffusion, namely the diffusion of water across a semipermeable membrane. Water readily crosses a membrane down its potential gradient from high to low potential (Fig. 19.3) [4]. Osmotic pressure is the force required to prevent water movement across the semipermeable membrane.