cramble
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɹæmbəl/
rhymes: -æmbəl
Forms: form: crambles
form: crambling
form: crambled
form: crambled
Senses: examples: text: Remove this, and the foundation is gone, the superstructure will soon totter, and in less time than was consumed in erecting, will the building cramble to atoms.
ref: 1878, W. M. French, P. G. Rep., “Miscellaneous”, in Odd Fellow's Talisman and Literary Journal, volume 11, page 578:
text: Usually she crambles the sand particles with her mandibles and fore legs and sweeps it out backwards through the underside of her abdomen.
ref: 1958, Fukui Daigaku. Kyōikugakubu, Memoirs: Natural science, page 30:
text: A sense of direction, a sense of leadership to give shape to an inertia which crambles in the face of a crises.
ref: 1988, Benazir Bhutto, The Way Out: Interviews, Impressions, Statements, and Messages, page 22:
glosses: To break apart.
examples: text: The yellow Fumitorie hath many crambling threddie rootes, ſomewhat thicke, groſſe, and fat, like thoſe of Aſparagus: from which riſe diuers vpright ſtalkes a cubite high, diuiding themſelues towarde the top into other ſmaller branches, whereon are confuſedly placed leaues like thoſe of Thalictrum or Engliſh Rubarbe, but leſſer and thinner: […]
ref: 1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton, →OCLC, book II, page 929:
text: Juliet, crambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to “tidy herself.”
ref: 1901, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton: My novel, page 240:
text: A baby, for instance, however adventurous, does not cramble, I feel sure; nor does ivy, which, as Gerarde puts it, “as it were with armes, creepeth and wandereth far about." Stouthearted Rocket, however, must cramble for its life through chalky, gravelly or stony soil of barren hills, each sturdy rootlet forcing itself along like a burrowing mole.
ref: 1918, Poet Lore, volume XXIX, page 575:
text: I could not bear the way they walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed.
ref: 1972, D. H. Lawrence an Italy, page 146:
glosses: To twist and wind irregularly.
examples: text: This way is very uncertain; for the Horse finding himself cramp'd, will only draw his Legs after him, and shuffle, unless he be forc'd; and besides, if the Lists are drawn too strait, when they are taken off ; the Sinews will be so numbed, that he will be only capable of crambling and cringing; and moreover it will greatly subject him to the String-halt, and often twitching up his Legs.
ref: 1687, The Jockey's Guide, and Farrier's Companion, page 34:
text: And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks, Those two, who cramble on the adjacent rocks, Their faithless hold no longer can retain, They sink o'erwhelm'd! and never rise again!
ref: 1861, William Falconer, “The Shipwreck: Canto III”, in Maria Mary Marinack, editor, Selections from the Works of the British Classical Poets, page 464:
text: People now who are in this house who have seen them at Macclesfield say they seem lame with their march and cramble much.
ref: 1893, “The Manuscripts of Sir William Fitzherbert, Bart., of Tissington, Co. Derby”, in Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, page 164:
text: At cockcrow she crambles up " My Master, my customers have refused to pay me."
ref: 1979, Aṅụ - Volume 1, page 22:
glosses: To move unsteadily or with difficulty; to hobble.