cramp
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English crampe, from Old French crampe (“cramp”), from Frankish *krampa (“cramp”), from Proto-West Germanic *krampu, from Proto-Germanic *krampō (“cramp, clasp”). Distant relative of English crop.
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /kɹæmp/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -æmp
Noun
[edit]cramp (countable and uncountable, plural cramps)
- A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled; (sometimes) a similar pain even without noticeable contraction.
- Hyponyms: charley horse, writer's cramp
- Coordinate term: twinge
- August 1534, Margaret Roper (or Thomas More in her name), letter to Alice Alington
- the cramp also that divers nights gripeth him in his legs.
- That which confines or contracts.
- 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
- A narrow Fortune is undoubtedly a Cramp to a great Mind.
- 1781 (date written), William Cowper, “Truth”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1782, →OCLC, page 96:
- How does it grate upon his thankleſs ear, / Crippling his pleaſures with the cramp of fear!
- A clamp for carpentry or masonry.
- A piece of wood having a curve corresponding to that of the upper part of the instep, on which the upper leather of a boot is stretched to give it the requisite shape.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Verb
[edit]cramp (third-person singular simple present cramps, present participle cramping, simple past and past participle cramped)
- (intransitive) (of a muscle) To contract painfully and uncontrollably.
- (transitive) To affect with cramps or spasms.
- 1936, Heinrich Hauser, Once Your Enemy (translated from the German by Norman Gullick)
- The collar of the tunic scratched my neck, the steel helmet made my head ache, and the puttees cramped my leg muscles.
- 1936, Heinrich Hauser, Once Your Enemy (translated from the German by Norman Gullick)
- (transitive, figurative) To prohibit movement or expression of.
- You're cramping my style.
- 1853, Austen Henry Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon:
- But the front of the animal , which was in full , was narrow and cramped , and unequal in dignity to the side
- (transitive) To restrain to a specific physical position, as if with a cramp.
- You're going to need to cramp the wheels on this hill.
- 1633, John Ford, Perkin Warbeck:
- when the gout cramps my joints
- To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp iron.
- (by extension) To bind together; to unite.
- 1780, Edmund Burke, Principles in Politics:
- The […] fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts.
- To form on a cramp.
- to cramp boot legs
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
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Adjective
[edit]cramp (comparative more cramp, superlative most cramp)
- (archaic) cramped; narrow
- 1871, David Masson, The Life of John Milton:
- […] the result was those folio volumes of MSS. now in the British Museum, in which inquirers into the history of that period find so much interesting material in such a confused state and in such a dreadfully cramp handwriting.
Translations
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References
[edit]- Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “cramp”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- “cramp”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Manx
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Likely from English cramp (“painful contraction; difficult to make out”)[1][2] or Middle Irish cnap (“cramping, contracting”).[3]
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]cramp m (genitive singular cramp, plural crampyn)
Adjective
[edit]cramp
Mutation
[edit]radical | lenition | eclipsis |
---|---|---|
cramp | chramp | gramp |
Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Manx.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.
References
[edit]- ^ “cramp, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- ^ “cramp, adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
- ^ Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “crap”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Frankish
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
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- Rhymes:English/æmp
- Rhymes:English/æmp/1 syllable
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