cringily
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Forms: form: more cringily
form: most cringily
Etymology: From cringey /cringy + -ly.
Senses: examples: text: They exulted when they opened their copies of the Hahnemannian to read therein that Dr. Gould was “a tallow candle going out with a bad smell,” “not honest,” "not truthful,” and that he “cringily begs for mercy.”
ref: 1891 December 19, “The morals and amenities of medical controversy”, in Med. News, 59:716–717; quoted in James Eckman, “History of Medicine in Minnesota: Homeopathic and Eclectic Medicine in Minnesota”, in Minnesota Medicine: […], volume 24, number 7, the Minnesota State Medical Association, 1941 July, page 568:
text: Then, dancing dishonours having been equally shared by a fatarmed partially dusky hoor and a tiny earnest negroid tart (both immeasurably under wraps) emerges now 1 song, beginning and rebeginning with a moist dark tone; cringily climbing (tumbling; crazily, upyearning) collapsing: smoothly, and languidly, building…
ref: 1933, E. E. Cummings, EIMI, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press Inc., published 1958, →LCCN, page 209:
text: THE TOURIST TRAP (T). Repeat of the cringily captivating series in which candid cameras reveal how holidaymakers from different countries react to a series of provocations, raging from petty larceny to full-frontal nudity.
ref: 1999 May 13, “Television Guide”, in Evening Standard, London, page 40:
text: You know the truth: you’re no different to that ageing hippy pal of your dad’s who once barged into your bedroom while you and your mates were smoking a joint and cringily demanded: ‘Hey man, pass the vibes.’
ref: 2002 December 1, Damon Syson, “How old are you really? Forget what it says on your birth certificate, you’re only as young as your lifestyle”, in The Observer, page 42:
text: All the way with Paige Michalchuk doesn t have quite the same ring to it, but the new version is just as cringily awesome as the original and covers the same breadth of PSA-worthy topics at least, in its Canadian incarnation.
ref: 2006, Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, “Degrassi: The Next Generation”, in Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) About TV, Philadelphia, Pa.: Quirk Books, →ISBN, page 76:
text: First, there’s NBC’s hit comedy The Office. NBC has already wisely figured out that the subject matter of the show – the cringily familiar misadventures of a pack of miserable office workers – naturally attracts an audience of miserable office workers;
ref: 2006 May 25, Tara Ariano, “More reasons to stay inside on a nice day; TV on the Web; This summer will have more than just Deadwood”, in National Post, volume 8, number 179, page AL5:
text: Her weatherbeaten face brightens at the sight of the pair of us, whom she always calls, just a little cringily, ‘my accomplished daughter and her lovely Nick’.
ref: 2008, Polly Williams, A Good Girl Comes Undone, Sphere, →ISBN, page 14:
text: Demi Moore’s recent self-taken Twitter snaps of herself in a bikini (inset) were cringily unnecessary – she is known for little else than looking unfeasibly good these days; no need to overdo it.
ref: 2010 September 12, Rhiannon Harries, “On my mind: Nothing says ‘Cheese!’ louder than those online self-portraits, says Rhiannon Harries”, in The Independent on Sunday, number 1,072, page 7:
text: Will just won’t accept that Lauren fancies Simon, and hangs around cringily in the background – even when she invites Simon to join her for their free time and they share a goodbye nuzzle.
ref: 2011, Charlotte Wilson, Inside the Inbetweeners: An Unofficial Guide, Hodder, page 17:
text: So far there had been a ranty poem about war that had gone on for twenty-two minutes, a cringily erotic poem from a woman who looked old enough to be her grandma, and now this.
ref: 2016, Siobhan Curham, chapter 3, in The Moonlight Dreamers, Walker Books, →ISBN, page 22:
text: “Okay,” I say, “and did you forget that once you announce the most senior officer on deck you don’t announce anyone else?” “I um, yeah uh,” he fumbles cringily, “it’s just I’m, I guess I thought-“
ref: 2019, P. D. York, Glaxsya, →ISBN, page 352:
text: Oliver’s little lectures are dotted with plenty of snarky asides and cringily millennial-friendly pop culture similes (the United States uncovering FIFA soccer corruption was “like finding out that Ke$ha arrested a group of bankers involved in commodities fraud!”), but they get results.
ref: 2018, Ken Jennings, “We Shall Overcomb”, in Planet Funny: How Comedy Ruined Everything, Scribner, published 2019, →ISBN, page 254:
text: He seems to know where he is in the professional ecosystem – there to join in but not to cringily attempt to be the last man standing, which means they like and respect him.
ref: 2019, Helen Whitaker, The School Run, Trapeze Books:
text: Samantha evaluated the size of my body thoughtfully, then proceeded to elicit donations for my going-out attire from Alison, the lone Chicagoan female, who also, as my mother would say, “carried her weight in her hips.” I thought of this expression cringily, as though gravity were wrapping around our bodies like a rope.
ref: 2019, Amy Feltman, Willa & Hesper, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Grand Central Publishing, →ISBN:
text: As the night-take-backers applaud Steve, Laura runs out, and he follows to thank her for not delivering him to what he’d previously, cringily, called a “lynch mob.”
ref: 2020, Tara Ariano, Sarah D. Bunting, A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes from TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code, New York, N.Y.: Abrams Image, →ISBN:
text: To be totally and probably cringily honest, I was scared.
ref: 2020, Auriane Desombre, “The Rules of Comedy”, in Together, Apart, Delacorte Press, →ISBN, page 111:
text: I cringily jump up and down a few times to get the douchechills out of my spine.
ref: 2021, Mary H. K. Choi, Yolk, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 54:
text: Mostly early nineties dance, it’s a collection Will’s picked up from boot sales and eBay. It’s the music his mum and dad were into in what they cringily refer to as their ‘raving days’, which they were still listening to years after its time, providing the soundtrack to long car journeys when Will was a kid.
ref: 2022, James Goodhand, Man Down, Penguin Books, →ISBN:
text: What if I did meet someone and things got frisky and he was like, ‘You like what?’ The thought was too cringily awful to contemplate, never mind how sad it made me feel.
ref: 2022, Sophie Ranald, P.S. I Hate You, Bookouture, →ISBN:
glosses: In a cringey manner.
Synonyms: cringeworthily
cringingly