Crimp

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɹɪmp/
• Rhymes: -ɪmp

Middle English crempen, from Proto-Germanic *krimpanÄ….

Germanic etymology.

Cognate to Dutch krimpen, via Middle Dutch crimpen, to Low German crimpen,

Origins, p. 130, by Eric Partridge

and to Faroese kreppa ("crisis") and Icelandic kreppa ("crisis"). From or cognate to Old Norse kreppa.

Possible cognate to cramp.

Full definition of crimp

Adjective

1. (obsolete) Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
• J. PhilipsNow the fowler ... treads the crimp earth.
2. (obsolete) Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.
• ArbuthnotThe evidence is crimp; the witnesses swear backward and forward, and contradict themselves.

Noun

1. 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.
2. (obsolete, UK, dialect) A coal broker.
3. (obsolete) One who decoys or entraps men into the military or naval service.
4. (obsolete) A keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.
5. (usually in the plural) A hairstyle which has been crimped, or shaped so it bends back and forth in many short kinks.
6. (obsolete) A card game.

Verb

1. To fasten by bending metal so that it squeezes around the parts to be fastened.He crimped the wire in place.
2. To pinch and hold; to seize.
3. To style hair into a crimp.
4. To join the edges of food products. For example: Cornish pasty, pies, jiaozi, Jamaican patty, and sealed crustless sandwiches.

Noun

1. An agent making it his business to procure seamen, soldiers, etc., especially by seducing, decoying, entrapping, or impressing them. the passing of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, applied to one who infringes sub-section 1 of this Act, i.e. to a person other than the owner, master, etc., who engages seamen without a license from the Board of Trade.
• unknown dateWhen a master of a ship..has lost any of his hands, he applies to a crimp..who makes it his business to seduce the men belonging to some other ship.
• unknown dateTrepanned into the West India Company's service by the crimps or silver-coopers as a common soldier.
• unknown dateOffering three guineas ahead to the crimps for every good able seaman.
• unknown dateI hear there are plenty of good men stowed away by the crimps at different places.
• unknown dateSallying forth at night..he came near being carried off by a gang of crimps.
• unknown dateIn the high and palmy days of the crimp, the pirate, the press-gang.

Verb

1. To impress (seamen or soldiers); to entrap, to decoy.Coaxing and courting with intent to crimp him. — Carlyle.
• unknown datePlundering corn and crimping recruits.
• unknown dateClutching at him, to crimp him or impress him.
• unknown dateThe cruel folly which crimps a number of ignorant and innocent peasants, dresses them up in uniform..and sends them off to kill and be killed.
• unknown dateThe Egyptian Government crimped negroes in the streets of Cairo.
• unknown dateWhy not create customers in the Queen's dominions..instead of trying..to crimp them in other countries?