cramp

Etymology

From Middle English crampe, from Old French crampe, cranpe (“cramp”), from Old Frankish *krampa (“cramp”), from Proto-Germanic *krampō (“cramp, clasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *grem- (“to unite; lap, pile, heap”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to unite, collect, forgather”). Cognate with Dutch kramp (“cramp”), German Low German Kramp (“cramp”), German Krampe and Krampf (“cramp”), Swedish kramp (“cramp”), Icelandic krampa (“cramp”). See also Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“lump, round mass, body, crop”), Ancient Greek ἀγείρω (ageírō, “I gather, collect”), whence ἀγορά (agorá), Latin grex.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɹæmp/
• Rhymes: -æmp

Noun

cramp (plural cramps)

1. A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled.
   • Sir T. More

     The cramp, divers nights, gripeth him in his legs.

2. That which confines or contracts; a restraint; a shackle; a hindrance.
   • L'Estrange

     A narrow fortune is a cramp to a great mind.

   • Cowper

     crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear

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.

Verb

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 prohibit movement or expression.

   You're cramping my style.

   • Layard

     The mind may be as much cramped by too much knowledge as by ignorance.

3. (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.

   • Ford

     when the gout cramps my joints

4. To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp.
5. (by extension) To bind together; to unite.
   • Burke

     The […] fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts.

6. To form on a cramp.

   to cramp boot legs

References

• “cramp” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2018.

Adjective

cramp

1. intricate, complex

Mutation