English

Adjective

crimp

1. (obsolete) Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
   • J. Philips

     Now the fowler […] treads the crimp earth.

2. (obsolete) Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.
   • Arbuthnot

     The evidence is crimp; the witnesses swear backward and forward, and contradict themselves.

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, Britain, dialect) A coal broker.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of De Foe to this entry?)

3. (obsolete) One who decoys or entraps men into the military or naval service.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Marryat to this entry?)

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 card game.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ben Jonson to this entry?)

Translations

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 pinch and hold; to seize.
3. To style hair into a crimp.
4. To join the edges of food products. For example: Cornish pasty, pies, jiaozi, Jamaican patty, and sealed crustless sandwiches.

Translations

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.]
   • (Can we date this quote?)

     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.

   • (Can we date this quote?)

     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.

   • (Can we date this quote?)

     The Egyptian Government crimped negroes in the streets of Cairo.

   • (Can we date this quote?)

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

References

1. ↑ Germanic etymology.
2. ↑ Origins, p. 130, by Eric Partridge

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