Definition of "cramp"

cramp

/kɹæmp/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural cramps
1. A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled.
  Quotations
  the cramp also that divers nights gripeth him in his legs.
  August 1534, Margaret Roper (or Thomas More in her name), letter to Alice Alington
2. That which confines or contracts.
  Quotations
  A narrow Fortune is undoubtedly a Cramp to a great Mind.
  1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […]
  How does it grate upon his thankleſs ear, / Crippling his pleaſures with the cramp of fear!
  1781 (date written), William Cowper, “Truth”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], page 96
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
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 affect with cramps or spasms.
  Quotations
  The collar of the tunic scratched my neck, the steel helmet made my head ache, and the puttees cramped my leg muscles.
  1936, Heinrich Hauser, Once Your Enemy (translated from the German by Norman Gullick)
3. (transitive, figurative) To prohibit movement or expression of.
  Quotations
  But the front of the animal , which was in full , was narrow and cramped , and unequal in dignity to the side
  1853, Austen Henry Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
4. (transitive) To restrain to a specific physical position, as if with a cramp.
  Quotations
  when the gout cramps my joints
  1633, John Ford, Perkin Warbeck
5. To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp iron.
6. (by extension) To bind together; to unite.
  Quotations
  The […] fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts.
  1780, Edmund Burke, Principles in Politics
7. To form on a cramp.
adjective
comparative more cramp, superlative most cramp
1. (archaic) cramped; narrow
  Quotations
  […] the result was those folio volumes of MSS. now in the British Museum, in which inquirers into the history of that period find so much interesting material in such a confused state and in such a dreadfully cramp handwriting.
  1871, David Masson, The Life of John Milton

Definition of "cramp"

cramp

noun

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verb

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adjective

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