crimp
/kɹɪmp/ adjective, noun, verb
Forms crimps crimping crimped
- adjective (obsolete) Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
- adjective (obsolete) Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.
- noun A fastener or a fastening method that secures parts by bending metal around a joint and squeezing it together, often with a tool that adds indentations to capture the parts. “The strap was held together by a simple metal crimp.”
- noun The natural curliness of wool fibres.
- noun (usually in the plural) Hair that is shaped so it bends back and forth in many short kinks.
- noun (obsolete) A card game.
- noun (climbing) A small hold with little surface area.
- noun (climbing) A grip on such a hold.
- verb To press into small ridges or folds, to pleat, to corrugate. “Cornish pasties are crimped during preparation.”
- verb (electricity) To fasten by bending metal so that it squeezes around the parts to be fastened. “He crimped the wire in place.”
- verb To pinch and hold; to seize.
- verb To style hair into a crimp, to form hair into tight curls, to make it kinky.
- verb To bend or mold leather into shape.
- verb To gash the flesh, e.g. of a raw fish, to make it crisper when cooked.
- verb (climbing) to hold using a crimp
- noun An agent who procures seamen, soldiers, etc., especially by decoying, entrapping, impressing, or seducing them.
- noun (specifically, law) One who infringes sub-section 1 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, applied to a person other than the owner, master, etc., who engages seamen without a license from the Board of Trade.
- noun (obsolete) A keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.
- verb (transitive) To impress (seamen or soldiers); to entrap, to decoy.
Synonyms
shanghai fold crease plication flexure bend crimper pinch crape frizzle frizz kink up kink
Etymology
From Middle English crimpen (“to be contracted, be drawn together”), from Middle Dutch crimpen, crempen (“to crimp”), from Proto-Germanic *krimpaną (“to shrink, draw back”) (compare related Old English ġecrympan (“to curl”)). Cognate with Dutch krimpen, German Low German krimpen, Faroese kreppa (“crisis”), and Icelandic kreppa (“to bend tightly, clench”). Compare also derivative Middle English crymplen (“to wrinkle”) and causative crempen (“to turn something back, restrain”, literally “to cause to shrink or draw back”), both ultimately derived from the same root. See also cramp.
Uncertain. Likely from etymology 1, above, but the historical development is not clear. Attested since the seventeenth century.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To fold or plait in regular undulation in such a way that the material will retain the shape intended; to give a wavy apperance to; as, to crimp the border of a cap; to crimp a ruffle. Cf. Crisp.
- verb To pinch and hold; to seize.
- adjective Easily crumbled; friable; brittle. [R.]
- adjective Weak; inconsistent; contradictory. [R.]
Etymology [Akin to D. krimpen to shrink, shrivel, Sw. krympa, Dan. krympe, and to E. cramp. See Cramp.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “crimp”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details