English

Adjective

crisp ‎(comparative crisper, superlative crispest)

1. (of something seen or heard) Sharp, clearly defined.
   • This new television set has a very crisp image.
2. (dated) Curling in stiff curls or ringlets.

   crisp hair

3. (obsolete) Curled by the ripple of water.
   • Shakespeare

     You nymphs called Naiads, of the winding brooks […] Leave your crisp channels.

4. Brittle; friable; in a condition to break with a short, sharp fracture.

   The crisp snow crunched underfoot.

   • Goldsmith

     The cakes at tea ate short and crisp.

5. Possessing a certain degree of firmness and freshness; in a fresh, unwilted condition.
   • Leigh Hunt

     It [laurel] has been plucked nine months, and yet looks as hale and crisp as if it would last ninety years.

6. Of weather, air etc.: dry and cold.
7. (of movement, action, etc.) Quick and accurate.
   • 2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC:

     Stephen Ward's crisp finish from Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's pass 11 minutes into the second half proved enough to give Mick McCarthy's men a famous victory.

8. (of talk, text, etc.) Brief and to the point.

   An expert, given a certain query, will often come up with a crisp answer: “yes” or “no”.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “chapter XV”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     It was plain that the loss of Phyllis Mills, goofy though she unquestionably was, had hit him a shrewd wallop, and I presumed that he was coming to me for sympathy and heart balm, which I would have been only too pleased to dish out. I hoped, of course, that he would make it crisp and remove himself at an early date, for when the moment came for the balloon to go up I didn't want to be hampered by an audience. When you're pushing someone into a lake, nothing embarrasses you more than having the front seats filled up with goggling spectators.

9. (obsolete) Lively; sparking; effervescing.
   • Beaumont and Fletcher

     your neat crisp claret

10. Brisk; crackling; cheerful; lively.
    • Charles Dickens

      the snug, small room, and the crisp fire

11. Of wine: having a refreshing amount of acidity; having less acidity than green wine, but more than a flabby one.
12. (computing theory) Not using fuzzy logic; based on a binary distinction between true and false.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

crisp ‎(plural crisps)

1. (Britain) A thin slice of fried potato eaten as a snack.

Synonyms

• (US): potato chip, potato crisp.

Translations

Verb

crisp ‎(third-person singular simple present crisps, present participle crisping, simple past and past participle crisped)

1. (transitive) To make crisp.

   to crisp bacon by frying it

2. (intransitive) To become crisp.
3. (transitive, dated) To curl; to form into ringlets, as hair, or the nap of cloth; to interweave, as the branches of trees.
4. (intransitive, archaic) To undulate or ripple.
   • Tennyson

     to watch the crisping ripples on the beach

5. (transitive, archaic) To cause to undulate irregularly, as crape or water; to wrinkle; to cause to ripple.
   • Drayton

     The lover with the myrtle sprays / Adorns his crisped tresses.

   • Milton

     The crisped brooks, / Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold.

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• Crips
• scrip