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Crimp   Listen
adjective
Crimp  adj.  
1.
Easily crumbled; friable; brittle. (R.) "Now the fowler... treads the crimp earth."
2.
Weak; inconsistent; contradictory. (R.) "The evidence is crimp; the witnesses swear backward and forward, and contradict themselves."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Crimp" Quotes from Famous Books



... health in a final bowl, voluntarily returned on board and "prayed for a fair wind"; but the majority held aloof, taking their chances and their pleasures in sailorly fashion until, their last stiver gone, they fell an easy prey to the press-gang or the crimp. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... good work go on with a rush!" called out Jack. "Not so much danger now, because I've put a crimp in that timber's threat to fall. It's securely wedged. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... last word," added Laroque sharply. "Don't make the mistake of thinking that if you refuse to get the affidavits it puts a crimp in us. It's only because we're playing white with you, and to give you a chance, that you're getting any choice at all. We didn't intend to give you one, but we don't want to be too rough on you, so if you want to get out that ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... wait untill tomorrow. Her knap was rather short. Ive desided to say you needent alow but 4 if 5 is too mutch. If she alows Im going to buy me some crimpers. Rhodas curls natchurally but she says you can crimp it if it doesent. I have begun to look at myself in the glass and it fritens me—I guess there ought to be a gh in that—to see how homebly I am. I wonder if it doesent kind of scare Aunt Olivia. Prehaps if I ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... called, also, a patent Italian iron, saves much labor, in ironing ruffles neatly. A crimping-iron, will crimp ruffles beautifully, with very little time or trouble. Care must be used, with the latter, or it will cut the ruffles. A trial should be made, with old muslins; and, when the iron is screwed in the right place, it must be so kept, and not altered without ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... Samoa in the fifties, and, after an eventful and varied experience in other portions of the group, had settled down to business in Matautu as a publican, baker and confectioner, butcher, seamen's crimp, and interpreter. You might go all over the Southern States, from St. Augustine to Galveston, and not meet ten such splendid specimens of negro physique and giant strength as this particular coloured gentleman. Tom had married a Samoan woman—Inusia—who had borne him three children, two ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... said a pretty brunette named Leonie as she leaned over her cushion to crimp some rose petals. "Poor Caroline is very unhappy about that fellow who used to ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... Hawkins loves me. Good by, Jim; take care of yourself." You couldn't have gotten a better jolt on the B. & 0. You will pardon my suppressed merriment, but that girl certainly made you look like a trailer. Never mind, Jim, old pal, we have all had a crimp put into us at one time or another, and if you work hard and observe good hours you'll get over it in four or five years. It's ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.

... of the outcome now," he said gleefully, "I'll put a crimp in some stories right away; and I'll just let it be known quietly at once that the matter's settled, then Marjie can't change it," he added mentally. "And you're to use all your influence. Good-evening, my dear Mrs. W. It'll soon be ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... that his master had taken leave of his senses. For, under one pretext or another, he began to dismiss the old and tried hands, who had served the firm for years, and in their place he embarked the scum of the port—men whose reputations were so vile that the lowest crimp would have been ashamed to furnish them. There was Birthmark Sweetlocks, who was known to have been present at the killing of the logwood-cutters, so that his hideous scarlet disfigurement was put down by the fanciful as being a red afterglow from that great crime. He was first ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... forgot your merits," said his patron; "I do remember that, in my extremities, you had a mind to CRIMP me for the service of the French king, or of the Pretender; and, moreover, that you afterwards lent me a score of pieces, when, as I firmly believe, you had heard the news that old Lady Girnington had a touch of the dead palsy. But don't be downcast, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... possible, but it is often a difficult job to put one on in the confined space of some battery compartments. In such places, a quick and lasting job can be made with a band vise and a short piece of round iron. This latter is laid across the lug and the vise screwed up, making a crimp across the lug which firmly grips down upon the bared cable strands that have been inserted ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... pendulous appendage which hangs over the orifice of the throat. Mine has become so seriously elongated that, after submitting for four days last week to its being burnt with caustic every morning in the hopes that it might thus crimp and contract itself, I have been obliged to have it amputated. This has left a great soreness, which militates against talking and deglutition, and would render our charming chats after the Madeira ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... McChesney. Christmas coming on kind of puts a crimp in the show business. Nice little bill on at the Majestic, if ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... up word to have Oliver come down into his study and see him for a little while,—so Mrs. Bedwin helped him to prepare himself, and although there was not even time to crimp the little frill that bordered his shirt-collar, he looked so delicate and handsome, that she surveyed him with ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... banjos in a state of decline. The proprietor, a powerful coloured man, was at once a publican, a ward politician, leader of some brigade of "lambs" or "smashers," at the wind of whose clubs the party bosses and the mayor were supposed to tremble, and (what hurt nothing) an active and reliable crimp. His front quarters, then, were noisy, disreputable, and not even safe. I have seen worse-frequented saloons where there were fewer scandals; for Tom was often drunk himself: and there is no doubt ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... take such complaints to the office. I never approached the boss with a demand that I did not think was right. Some of the men thought we ought to be vindictive and take every opportunity to put a crimp in the business for the owners. I envied the owners (we've all got a touch of that in our system), because they were rich and were making profits. I knew what their profits averaged. By calling fussy little strikes often enough I could have kept ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... crisp assurance about this note, a certain absence of timorousness, a certain unfamiliar tone of independence. But he could afford to wait, he told himself. His hour would come, later on. And when that hour came, he would take a crimp out of this calm-eyed woman, or the heavens themselves would fall! And finding further idleness unbearable, he made his way to a drinking-place not far from that juncture of First Street and the Bowery, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... Four to Eleven. Saw Company. Mr. Froths Opinion of Milton. His Account of the Mohocks. His Fancy for a Pin-cushion. Picture in the Lid of his Snuff-box. Old Lady Faddle promises me her Woman to cut my Hair. Lost five Guineas at Crimp. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... of course be at once withdrawn. This, however, you were expecting, and as his leg goes back your hand goes up to the high hanging guard, covering your head from his cut. This cut stopped, he is at your mercy, and you may cut him in halves or crimp his thigh at your leisure. This position is ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... were bad for a boy of my size, and I saw things that I shouldn't have seen—a docker crushed upon one of the docks and brought out on a stretcher dead, a stoker as drunk as though he were dead being wheeled on a wheelbarrow to a ship by the man called a "crimp," who sold this drunken body for an advance on its future pay. Sam told me in detail of these things. There came a strike, and once in the darkness of a cold November twilight I saw some dockers rush on a "scab," I heard the dull sickening thumps ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... Artox wholemeal, 10 ozs. butter, 4 ozs. sugar, 1 egg, 1/4 oz. baking powder. Rub the Artox wholemeal, sugar, and butter together, add the baking powder, and make into a stiff paste with the egg. Mould it into cakes, crimp the edges, and bake ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... and Y.D. received them as cordially as had Transley. "Glad to see you fellows back," he exclaimed. "I al'us said the Western men 'ud put a crimp in the Kaiser, spite o' hell an' ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... nosed out something they want to put through. The fools! And after last night nearly havin' finished everything! I told 'em—you heard me—that everybody's to keep under cover now. But they think they've got a soft thing, and they say they're goin' to it. I've got to put a crimp in it, and you've got to help ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... of the largest size handkerchiefs for a grim purpose. Back in Thirty-ninth street he concealed himself in the area-way of a vacant house across the street from the rooming-house. Now, if only Sadie did not come back before Charley went out, and if an inquisitive policeman did not put a crimp in ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... silent and motionless. "Boys, you've heard Hennessy. Play it my way and you'll wear diamonds; mess it up and you'll all wear hemp. The world will forgive us when it finds out we've only made it laugh." Cunningham strolled over to Flint, who rose to his feet. "Flint, I want that crimp-house whisky you've been swigging on the sly. No back ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... had a case or two myself, kid. It ain't nothin' new, this crimp you've got," said Dick, putting his heels on the desk. "Adam had it. So did Solomon, only he had it in so many places he got so he didn't mind it. Think of them guys that have harems. Think of Brigham Young. Why, kid, you don't know the first thing about ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... the top. She had kept on twisting her hair so, all these years; and the rippling folds turned naturally under her fingers into their places. The color was bright still, and it had not thinned. Over her brows it parted richly, with no fuzz or crimp; but a sweet natural wreathing look that made her face young. Mrs. Ledwith had done hers over slate-pencils till she had burned it off; and now tied on a friz, that came low down, for fashion's sake, and left visible only a little bunch of puckers between her eyebrows and ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... on a Saturday evening the Young Gent would draw down his six dollars worth of salary and chase himself to the barber shop, where the Bolivian lawn trimmer would put a crimp in his mustache and plaster his forehead with three cents worth of hair and ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... every article. The poor fellows, by these means, are placed under a sort of espionage, if not close confinement, till the ship is ready to receive them; and then they are conducted on board at Gravesend by the Crimp and his assistants, and a receipt taken ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the wrack is the bell, the same now adornin' a Presbyter'an church an' summonin' folks to them services. I tells you, gents, the thoughts of that Willow Run, an' we not able to save so much as a quart of it, puts a crimp in that commoonity they ain't yet outlived. It 'most drives 'em crazy; they walks them banks for months a-wringin' their ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... got a note, a pink, Sweet-scented, crested one, Which was an invitation To a ball, from the king's son. Oh, then poor Cinderella Had to starch, and iron, and plait, And run of errands, frill and crimp, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... annual meeting. Well, you put a crimp in me then. Just by passing that dividend you dropped me so flat that I lost every ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... in such a way, that no one could board us except by the bowsprit, which overhung the quay. Staggering along that bowsprit, now came a one-eyed crimp leading a drunken tar by the collar, who had been shipped to sail with us the day previous. It has been stated before, that two or three of our men had left us for good, while in port. When the crimp had got this man and another safely lodged in a bunk below, he returned ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... river. Then we'll take charge with our men and make the drive. On top of that we'll sue Scattergood for thirty or forty cents a thousand—extra cost we've been put to by his inability to handle the drive. That'll put a crimp in him—and if we keep after him hot and heavy it won't take long to drive him ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland

... wider berth. In every trap, somebody was sitting over a fire, waiting for Jack. Now, it was a crouching old woman, like the picture of the Norwood Gipsy in the old sixpenny dream-books; now, it was a crimp of the male sex, in a checked shirt and without a coat, reading a newspaper; now, it was a man crimp and a woman crimp, who always introduced themselves as united in holy matrimony; now, it was Jack's delight, his (un)lovely Nan; but they were all waiting for ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... say that yet," spoke Old Billee cautiously, "Del Pinzo an' Hank Fisher are still around an' above ground. But I guess you've put a crimp in 'em, boys!" ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... the nicest clam bouillon," she told Dorothy, "and besides cooking, that little alcohol lamp is just the thing for hair crimping. I will crimp mine if I can find anything to make a hot ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose

... said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis this way. Ye see, this here Sagasta is a boonco steerer like Canada Bill, an' th' likes iv him. A smart man is this Sagasta, an' wan that can put a crimp in th' ca-ards that ye cudden't take out with a washerwoman's wringer. He's been through manny a ha-ard game. Talk about th' County Dimocracy picnic, where a three-ca-ard man goes in debt ivry time he hurls th' broads, 'tis ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... sheathing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten men, who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed away, but I was not let farther into the secret; so I set out to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr and Mrs Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... which I was ordered to march was standing, as I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... meeting of the school board and has gone and gotten us suspended from the team! He's raised a terrific rumpus about football in general and has tried to get the big game of the year with Edgewood canceled but he can't get away with that. He's influential enough to put a crimp in the team, though, and to put a crimp in us in particular, by getting the board to have us kicked off the eleven just when we're needed most. I hope you won't think I'm handing myself bouquets on purpose but I'm the best ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... straight, and muscular. No dew claws, the feet large and pointing forward. COAT (DOUBLE)—An under, short, close, soft, and woolly. An over, long, averaging 5-1/2 inches, hard, straight, flat, and free from crimp or curl. Hair on head, shorter, softer, and veiling the forehead and eyes; on the ears, overhanging inside, falling down and mingling with the side locks, not heavily, but surrounding the ear like a fringe, and allowing its shape to appear. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... awoke the morning after his attempt to crimp his son with a bad headache. Not an ordinary headache, to disappear with a little cold water and fresh air; but a splitting, racking affair, which made him feel all head and dulness. Weights pressed upon his eye-lids and the back ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana from the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin' a crimp in folks! Gents when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one side like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... children of the solid earth, and trained to seize the winds from heaven for their wings, to meet with grim contempt the embattled powers of sky and wave, and then, alas! on land to become the puny sport of merchant, crimp, and ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... and a square, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips lurked a certain haughtiness, that despite the curb of good breeding, bordered at times closely upon insolence. Thirty years had tripped over this dark head, where the hair, innocent of crimp or curl, hung in a straight jet fringe low on her wide forehead; and though no lines marred the smooth, health-tinted skin, she was perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare of life," and the dew of youth had vanished before the vampire ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... dear! do you see that little fellow, with his merry-thought-like looking legs, clinging round that gallant bright chesnut, thoro'bred, and sticking to his ribs as if he meant to crimp him for the dinner of some gourmand curious in horse-flesh! There he is, screwing his sharp knees into the saddle, sitting well up from his loins, stretching his neck, curving his back, stiffening the wire-like muscles of his small arms, and holding in the noble brute ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... Lamson" was over eighty, and she dressed with due deference to custom; but everything about her gained, in the wearing, an air of youth. Her aggressively brown front was rumpled a little, as if it had tried to crimp itself, only to be detected before the operation was well begun, and the purple ribbons of ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... Mode.—Clean and crimp the tench; carefully lay it in a stewpan with the stock, wine, salt and pepper, and bay-leaf; let it stew gently for 1/2 hour; then take it out, put it on a dish, and keep hot. Strain the liquor, and thicken it with butter and flour ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... short parley we obtained entrance, and were taken into a small room where the crimp inquired of us what money we had, and then told us what his charges were. The reason of his doing this was, because if we had no money, or very little, he would have disposed of us very soon by sending us on board of some ship, and obtaining an advance of our wages from the captain as his indemnification; ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... name, by the way, had been originally Crimp; but as the word was susceptible of an awkward construction and might be misrepresented, he ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... of the land down to the last sage brush," declared the foreman. "But we will put a crimp in Megget's plans that he will not forget. My men are asleep by the fire, so there is no use waking them till ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster

... the cousinly-looking man. "I must get three guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant voyage to ye, my friend," and, leaving Israel a prisoner, the crimp, buttoning his coat, sauntered ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... had sworn to die rather than lose the race. Long before the opening event the inclosure was crowded with spectators, all eagerly discussing the Marathon, to the exclusion of every other contest. The opinion was freely expressed that Richards would "put a crimp in that chesty Chester," and that he would "win in a walk." They made ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... When laid in his chest; Yea, limp; and why But to signify That the grave will crimp Ere next year's sun Yet another one Of those in that house - It may be the best - For its ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... think, Vermin!" Mr. Wentz winced. This perversion of his name had darkened his childhood days and he never had outgrown his antipathy to it. "I think," Toomey went on, "that you're shaky as the devil—that Neifkins' big loss put such a crimp in you that an honest bank examiner could close your doors! I'll bet my hat against a white chip that even a boys'-size 'run' could shut your little two by twice bank up tight ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... those pleasant asylums in the Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in Downing Street, where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not at once before you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the "ordinary seaman" higgling for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging that his grog may not be watered? And, last of all, see the old lighthouse-keepers, the veteran First Clerks who serve every Administration, and keep their lamps bright for all ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... meantime, Isabel had got so far along that she could tell by the Feel whether the Goods were real or only Mercerized, and each Setting Sun saw a new crimp in the ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... to it, Gervase: A man of sense is not made for marriage; 'tis a game, which none but dull plodding fellows can play at well; and 'tis as natural to them, as crimp is to a Dutchman. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... chain; fetter &c (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple^, link, yoke, bracket; marry &c (wed) 903; bridge over, span. braze; pin, nail, bolt, hasp, clasp, clamp, crimp, screw, rivet; impact, solder, set; weld together, fuse together; wedge, rabbet, mortise, miter, jam, dovetail, enchase^; graft, ingraft^, inosculate^; entwine, intwine^; interlink, interlace, intertwine, intertwist^, interweave; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... losing a few doesn't put a crimp in him," said Bud. "It's different with us, and I'm not going to stand it. Zip Foster wouldn't and I'm not going to!" and again he dashed his hat on the ground, ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker

... dream, all right—one of your princess-cut girls, with the kind of clothes on that would make a turkey-red check-book turn pale. But you couldn't fool me, even if she had put a Marcelle crimp in that carroty hair of hers, and washed off the freckles and biscuit flour. You can't change Irish-blue eyes, can you? And when you've come to know a voice that's got a range from maple-sugar to mixed pickles, you don't forget it, either. Know her? Say, I was brought ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... done some good," sturdily asserted Jerry. "We wouldn't allow the Sans to rag Katherine. The Beauty contest was an awful damper to them, especially Miss Weyman. It put a crimp in her sails. She needed to be suppressed. Then came the trouble about basket ball. The Silverton House girls deserve most of the credit for that coup de grace. It certainly brought the freshman class together with a snap. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... you had a license to faint if you felt that way," he comforted awkwardly. "It was the smoke and the heat, I reckon; they were enough to put a crimp in anybody. Did Man say about when he would be back? Because I ought to be moving along; it's quite a walk to ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... not?" defended Rimrock. "Didn't I put a crimp in him? Didn't I double my money on ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... want to be thanked for it a white chip more'n we do," concluded the captain. "If there's any thanks coming it is to that little two-foot chunk of man yonder. Snaking over that fall was a thing to put a crimp in anybody. You was bound to help ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips

... current that, fresh from its plunge of four hundred feet in sixteen miles, ran briskly. Everything was in readiness. I meant to put a crimp in the vanity of ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt



Words linked to "Crimp" :   curl, kink, frizzle, ringlet, bend, kidnapper, turn up, fold, angularity, abductor, flute, twist, whorl, plait, angular shape, twirl, crape, plication, lock, frizz, pucker, ruck, kink up, pinch, spit curl, crease



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