Wiktionary

cramp

See also: Cramp

English edit

 
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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)

  1. A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled.
    • 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.
  2. That which confines or contracts.
    Synonyms: restraint, shackle, hindrance
  3. A clamp for carpentry or masonry.
  4. 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 edit

clamp for carpentry or masonry — see clamp
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)

  1. (intransitive) (of a muscle) To contract painfully and uncontrollably.
  2. (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.
  3. (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
  4. (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.
  5. To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp iron.
  6. (by extension) To bind together; to unite.
  7. To form on a cramp.
    to cramp boot legs

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

Adjective edit

cramp (comparative more cramp, superlative most cramp)

  1. (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.

References edit

Manx edit

Etymology edit

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Adjective edit

cramp

  1. intricate, complex

Derived terms edit

Mutation edit

Manx mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
cramp chramp gramp
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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