crimp

English

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɹɪmp/, X-SAMPA: /krImp/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪmp

Etymology 1

Middle English crempen, from Proto-Germanic *krimpaną.

Cognate to Dutch krimpen, via Middle Dutch crimpen, to Low German crimpen, and to Faroese kreppa (“crisis”) and Icelandic kreppa (“crisis”). From or cognate to Old Norse kreppa.

Possible cognate to cramp.

Adjective

crimp

1. (obsolete) Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
2. (obsolete) Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.

Noun

crimp (plural crimps)

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 game of cards.

Translations

fastener or method

• Russian: обжим (ru) (obžím) m

Verb

crimp (third-person singular simple present crimps, present participle crimping, simple past and past participle crimped)

1. To fasten by bending metal so that it squeezes around the parts to be fastened.

   He crimped the wire in place.

2. To style hair into a crimp.
3. To join the edges of food products. For example: Cornish pasty, pies, jiaozi, Jamaican patty, and sealed crustless sandwich.

Translations

to fasten by bending metal

• Russian: обжимать (ru) (obžimátʹ) impf., обжать (ru) (obžátʹ) pf.

Etymology 2

Noun

crimp (plural crimps)

1. An agent making it his business to procure seamen, soldiers, etc., especially by seducing, decoying, entrapping, or impressing them. [Since 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.]
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     When 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.

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     Trepanned into the West India Company's service by the crimps or silver-coopers as a common soldier.

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     Offering three guineas ahead to the crimps for every good able seaman.

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     I hear there are plenty of good men stowed away by the crimps at different places.

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     Sallying forth at night..he came near being carried off by a gang of crimps.

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     In the high and palmy days of the crimp, the pirate, the press-gang.

Verb

crimp (third-person singular simple present crimps, present participle crimping, simple past and past participle crimped)

1. To impress (seamen or soldiers); to entrap, to decoy.

   Coaxing and courting with intent to crimp him. — Carlyle.

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     Plundering corn and crimping recruits.

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     Clutching at him, to crimp him or impress him.

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     The 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.

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     The Egyptian Government crimped negroes in the streets of Cairo.

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     Why not create customers in the Queen's dominions..instead of trying..to crimp them in other countries?

References

• crimp in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• “crimp” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).