cringe

A former nun working as a prostitute cringes (sense 1) in terror and remorse before Clement, a Dominican friar, who seeks to help her return to the convent, an episode from Charles Reade’s novel The Cloister and the Hearth (1861).[n 1]

The verb is derived from Middle English crengen (“to bend in a haughty manner; to condescend”) [and other forms],[1] from Old English *crenċan, *crenċġan, *crenġan (“to cause to fall or turn”), the causative of crinċġan (“to yield; to cringe; to fall; to die, perish”),[2] from Proto-Germanic *krangijaną (“to cause to fall; to cause to turn”), from Proto-Germanic *kringaną, *krinkaną (“to fall; to turn; to yield”) (from Proto-Indo-European *grenǵʰ- (“to turn”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives with the sense ‘to cause to do (the action of the verb)’ from strong verbs). The English word is cognate with Danish krænge (“to turn inside out, evert”), Dutch krengen (“to careen, veer”), Scots crenge, creenge, creinge, crienge (“to cringe; to shrug”), Swedish kränga (“to careen; to heel, lurch; to toss”), and West Frisian kringe (“to pinch; to poke; to push; to insist, urge”); and is a doublet of crinkle.

The noun[3] and adjective are derived from the verb via zero derivation.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /kɹɪnd͡ʒ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪndʒ

cringe (third-person singular simple present cringes, present participle cringing, simple past and past participle cringed)

1. (intransitive) To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear.

   He cringed as the bird collided with the window.

   • 1684, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress. From This World to That which is to Come: The Second Part. […], London: […] Nathaniel Ponder […], →OCLC; reprinted in The Pilgrim’s Progress as Originally Published by John Bunyan: Being a Fac-simile Reproduction of the First Edition, London: Elliot Stock […], 1875, →OCLC, page 69:

     [W]hen they were come up to the place where the Lions were, the Boys that went before, were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the Lions, ſo they ſtept back and went behind.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “A Bosom Friend”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 55:

     And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.

   • 1860, [John B. Newman], “The Combat”, in Wa-Wa-Wanda: A Legend of Old Orange, New York, N.Y.: Rudd & Carleton, […], →OCLC, page 28:

     Here the angel ceased, and frowning, / Hurled his heavy gauntlet at him; / Hurled, as best he could, the creature, / Cringing as the Serpent cringeth, / Coiled, and with his crest uplifted; / And then prone upon his belly, / Crawled away upon his belly, [...]

   • 1917 April, Jack London, chapter VIII, in Jerry of the Islands, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, page 115:

     But he [Jerry, a dog] made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth.

2. (intransitive, figuratively) To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed.
3. (intransitive) To bow or crouch in servility.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Loue of Learning; or Ouer-much Study. With a Digression of the Misery of Schollers, and Why the Muses are Melancholy.”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 2, member 3, subsection 15, page 113:

     [I]f they keepe their wits, yet they are accompted fooles by reaſon of their carriage, becauſe they cannot ride a horſe, which euery Clowne can doe; ſalute and court a Gentlewoman, carue at table, cringe and make congies, which euery common ſwaſher can doe, [...]

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 958–961:

     And thou ſly hypocrite, who now wouldſt ſeem / Patron of liberty, who more then thou / Once fawn'd,and cring'd, and ſervilly ador'd / Heav'ns awful Monarch?

   • 1846, Thomas Cooper, “To the Countess of Blessington”, in The Baron’s Yule Feast: A Christmas-rhyme, London: Jeremiah How, […], →OCLC:

     Lady, receive a tributary lay / From one who cringeth not to titled state / Conventional, and lacking will to prate / Of comeliness— [...]

   • 1891, Edgar Fawcett, “How a Queen Loved”, in Songs of Doubt and Dream: (Poems), New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Funk & Wagnalls, →OCLC, stanza I, page 155:

     Humbly thou cringest that with nod of head / Couldst fling me seaward from they steepest cliffs!

   • 1902, Jack London, “Bâtard”, in The Faith of Men and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., published September 1904, →OCLC, page 207:

     Leclère was bent on the coming of the day when Bâtard [a dog] should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.

   • 1903 April 18, W[illiam] E[dward] Burghardt Du Bois, “Of Alexander Crummell”, in The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., →OCLC, page 219:

     He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.

4. (intransitive, figuratively) To act in an obsequious or servile manner.
   • 1782, John Brown, “The Christian Journal of a Summer-day”, in The Christian Journal; or, Common Incidents, Spiritual Instructors. […], 4th edition, Edinburgh: […] Gavin Alston; [s]old by William Coke, […], →OCLC, page 119:

     Here the beggar accoſts me; had I appeared as himſelf, he had aſked nothing: but now he uncovers, he cringeth, he cries for relief.

   • 1851, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XI, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume III, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 105:

     Their [the clergy's] chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer.

   • 1880 June 23, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Ethnology of Modern Midian”, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, volume XII (Second Series), London: John Murray, […]; Trübner and Co., […], published 1882, →OCLC, part I (Notices of the Tribes of Midian, [...]), page 286:

     Even to the present day the Arabs consider treating a Hutaymi as unmanly as to strike a woman. When a Felláh says to another, "Tat'hattim" (= Tat'maskin, or Tat'zallí), he means, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible (as a Hutaymi)."

5. (transitive, obsolete) To draw (a body part) close to the body; also, to distort or wrinkle (the face, etc.).
   • 1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 10:

     [H]ow thriue you, howe periſh you, and they cringing in their neckes, like rattes, ſmothered in the holde, [...]

   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene xiii], page 357, column 2:

     Whip him Fellowes, / Till like a Boy you ſee him crindge his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.

6. (transitive, obsolete) To bow or crouch to (someone) in servility; to escort (someone) in a cringing manner.

• crinch (dialectal)

• crouch
• wince

cringe (countable and uncountable, plural cringes)

1. (countable) A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking).

   He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.

2. (countable, figuratively) An act or disposition of servile obeisance.
3. (countable, Britain, dialectal) A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).
4. (uncountable, slang) Awkwardness or embarrassment which causes an onlooker to cringe; cringeworthiness.

   There was so much cringe in that episode!

   • 2018 June 1, Alana Schetzer, “Australiana 2.0: how cultural cringe became cool”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     By the mid 1990s however, this wave of colour and cultural celebration had faded into a puddle of cultural cringe, in which anything remotely Australian was met with disdain and embarrassment.

cringe (comparative more cringe, superlative most cringe)

1. (slang) Inducing awkwardness, embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment; cringemaking, cringeworthy, cringy.

   Antonym: (Internet slang) based

   • 2022 September 16, Alex Hern, “‘Gifs are cringe’: how Giphy’s multimillion-dollar business fell out of fashion”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     “They have fallen out of fashion as a content form, with younger users in particular describing gifs as ‘for boomers’ and ‘cringe’.”

• → Armenian: քրինջ (kʿrinǰ) (slang)
• → German: cringe (slang)
• → Italian: cringe (slang)
• → Polish: cringe (slang)
• → Russian: кринж (krinž) (slang)
• → Spanish: cringe (slang)
• → Ukrainian: криндж (kryndž) (slang)

• cering, genric, rec'ing

Unadapted borrowing from English cringe.

cringe (indeclinable, predicative only)

1. (neologism, chiefly youth slang) cringe, cringeworthy
   • 2020 November 12, Sinan Ilhan Dogru, Ich bin angekommen‎, BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, →OCLC, Dein bester Freund, page 23:

     Dieses Buch ist nicht nur ein Buch, sondern auch gleichzeitig dein bester Freund. Klingt bisschen cringe, ist aber trotzdem die Wahrheit.

     This book is not just a book, but also your best friend. Sounds a bit cringe, but it's the truth.

• cringen
• Cringe

• “cringe” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “cringe” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon

Unadapted borrowing from English cringe.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkrind͡ʒ/
• Rhymes: -indʒ

cringe m (invariable)

1. (neologism, slang) cringe

cringe (invariable, superlative cringissimo)

1. (neologism, slang) cringy

• cringiata

Unadapted borrowing from English cringe.

• IPA^(key): /krint͡ʂ/
• Rhymes: -int͡ʂ
• Syllabification: cringe

cringe m inan

1. (slang) cringe, cringeworthiness

   Synonyms: obciach, przypał, siara

• cringe in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• cringe in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from English cringe.

cringe m (plural cringe)

1. (neologism) cringe

cringe (invariable)

1. (neologism) cringy