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crimp

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Etymology and origin of the English word crimp

Pronunciation

crimp1 press into folds, curl

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1698 Leeuwenhoek, in the Philosophical Transactions
Borrowed from
Dutch krimpen
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *krimpaną

Etymology

The word for pressing into folds is of disputed origin.[2][3][4] Most dictionaries take it as borrowed from Dutch krimpen (“to shrink, shrivel”) or Low German krimpen,[5][6][7][8] which Barnhart and Etymonline trace to Middle Dutch crimpen and Middle Low German krimpen (“to shrink, shrivel, crimp”).[3][9][4] The Dutch verb goes back to Proto-Germanic *krimpaną (“to shrink, draw back”),[1][10] also the source of Old High German krimphan and Middle High German krimpfen.[4][11][2] Other grades of the same Germanic base gave cramp and crump, and probably Old Norse kreppa (“to pinch, clench”).[2][8] Old English had ġecrympan (“to crimp, curl”), recorded once, in a glossary,[12][2][9] and Middle English crimpen (“to be drawn together”) is found once, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus (before 1398).[13][3][2] Hoad sees no continuity between the Old English verb and the modern one,[4] while the Oxford Dictionary of English derives the modern verb from it, perhaps reintroduced from Low German or Dutch,[14] and Dictionary.com takes it straight from the Old English verb.[15] The OED, revised in 2010, derives the Old English verb probably from crump (“crooked, bent”) with i-mutation, later perhaps reinforced by the Dutch and Low German verb, and notes that apart from those two early records the word is found only from the late 17th century.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make the flesh of a fish contract and firm up by gashing it before it stiffens: 1698, in Leeuwenhoek's paper in the Philosophical Transactions.[2] Barnhart dates the verb, in the sense "to compress, curl, shrink", to the same year.[3] The earlier records are the Old English past participle glossing Latin calamistratis, with curled hair,[12][2] and Trevisa's "to be drawn together" before 1398.[13][3]

Semantic evolution

The sense of curling hair, usually with a hot iron, goes back to the Old English gloss,[2] and in the 18th century the verb spread to bending back or drawing together (1712),[9] to restricting or hampering (1747),[2] and to pressing into small regular folds, corrugating or frilling (1772).[2] With the 19th century came technical senses: squeezing the edge of a metal part to fasten it (1828, in Webster's dictionary) and bending leather into shape for boots or saddles (1849).[2] The noun, formed from the verb, first meant a crease or fold (1782);[2][5] the waviness of wool or hair is recorded from 1836, originally in the United States,[2] although Etymonline and Barnhart date it to 1863.[9][3] The American colloquial put a crimp in, to hamper, is found from 1889,[2] by 1896 in Etymonline.[9][16] In rock climbing, since 1989, to crimp is to grip a small hold with the fingertips and bent finger joints.[2] In Scotland and several English counties the verb also meant to crumple, wrinkle or twitch, and of water, to ripple.[17]

Timeline

  • 1698 – to gash the flesh of fish so that it contracts.[2]
  • 1712 – to bend back or draw together.[9]
  • 1747 – to restrict or hamper.[2]
  • 1772 – to press into small regular folds; to corrugate or frill.[2]
  • 1782 – noun, a crease or fold.[2][5]
  • 1828 – to squeeze the edge of a metal part to fasten it.[2]
  • 1836 – noun, the waviness of wool or hair.[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1863.[9]
  • 1849 – to bend leather into shape.[2]
  • 1889 – put a crimp in, to hamper (US colloquial).[2] Etymonline dates the phrase to 1896.[9]
  • 1989 – in rock climbing, to grip a small hold with the fingertips.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To press into small regular folds or ridges; to corrugate or pleat.[18][5][2]
  2. To pinch or squeeze together the edges of metal parts or a connector to join them: The electrician crimped a terminal onto each wire.[18][2]
  3. To wave or curl hair tightly, especially with curling tongs or a hot iron.[18][5][2]
  4. To pinch the edge of pastry into a fluted pattern.[18]
  5. To gash fish or meat so that the flesh contracts and becomes firmer.[18][5][2]
  6. To bend or mould leather into shape, as for shoes.[18][5][2]
  7. (chiefly North American) To hinder or restrict.[19][2]
  8. To become wavy, creased or wrinkled.[5][2]

Noun

  1. A crease, fold or ridge made by crimping.[2][5][19]
  2. The waviness of wool fibre or hair; a wave or curl, especially in the plural for curled hair.[5][2][19]
  3. put a crimp in: to hinder or spoil something (chiefly North American).[2][19][9]

Word family

  • crimper
  • crimpy

crimp2 agent who decoyed men into service

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1638 John Ford, The Fancies

Etymology

The word for an agent who trapped men into service is of uncertain origin.[2][8][18] The American Heritage Dictionary and the Shorter Oxford call it of unknown origin.[6][11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged suggests it may come from the verb meaning to press into folds,[5] and Dictionary.com takes it as a special use of that verb,[15] while Partridge derives the decoy noun and verb from the same Dutch and Low German verb.[20] Weekley suggests a link through an obsolete 17th-century card game.[7] The OED doubts a derivation from the verb: that would be plausible if the recruiting sense came first, as from "to press seamen", but the person senses seem to share the older meaning "agent, intermediary, broker, procurer", from which the recruiting sense probably developed.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A derisive or reproachful form of address: 1638, in John Ford's play The Fancies.[2][11]

Semantic evolution

From 1676 a crimp was an agent or contractor for unloading coal ships, or a broker,[2][11] and in Norfolk the word was still used for a dealer in coals.[17] The sense of a person who procured seamen or soldiers without a licence, by trickery or force, often keeping a lodging house for the purpose, is recorded from 1718, at first as a cant word;[2][5] Foote's Cozeners (1774) mentions "the crimp's money" for procuring a recruit.[16] From 1788 the word could mean any dishonest agent.[2] A related sense, a cheating practice, gave to play crimp, to cheat, especially to lose a horse race on purpose (1684–1785).[2][16] The verb, to entrap a man into the army or navy, followed in 1789.[2][5] According to Green's Dictionary of Slang, the practice was banned after the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854.[16]

Timeline

  • 1638 – a term of abuse (obsolete).[2][11]
  • 1676 – an agent for unloading coal ships; a broker.[2]
  • 1684 – to play crimp, to cheat (obsolete by 1785).[2]
  • 1718 – a person who procures seamen or soldiers by trickery or force.[2][5]
  • 1788 – any dishonest agent.[2]
  • 1789 – verb, to entrap men into the army or navy.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (historical) A person who decoyed or forced men into serving as sailors or soldiers, often keeping a lodging house for the purpose; compare press gang.[5][11][2]

Verb

  1. (historical) To trap men into military or naval service; to impress.[5][11][2]

Usage notes

Dictionaries also record a crimp adjective, brittle or crisp, from 1587, now archaic or obsolete,[2][5][21] and crimp, an old card game, from before 1637.[2][5] In Dorset dialect a crimp was a crumb, and in Hampshire all of a crimp meant cold and shivery.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  13. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  16. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  19. ^ a b c d The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  20. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  21. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.

Related etymologies

  • yacht · also from Dutch
  • crawl · also from Dutch
  • skate · also from Dutch
  • hooker · also from Dutch
  • funk · also from Dutch
  • stoke · also from Dutch
  • gin · also from Dutch
  • rant · also from Dutch
Cite this entry

“Crimp.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/crimp. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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