cringe
Part of speech: verb
noun
adj
intj
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: The verb is derived from Middle English crengen (“to bend in a haughty manner; to condescend”) [and other forms], from Old English *crenġan, *crenċġan, *crenċan (“to cause to fall or turn”) from Proto-Germanic *krangijaną (“to cause to fall; to cause to turn”), causative of Proto-Germanic *kringaną, *krinkaną (“to fall; to turn; to yield”) (> Old English crin(c)gan (“to yield; to cringe; to fall; to die, perish”)), from Proto-Indo-European *grenǵʰ- (“to turn”)). The causative suffix is from *-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”) and Dutch kring (“circle”), 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 and adjective are derived from the verb via zero derivation.
Inflected forms:
form: cringes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: cringing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: cringest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: cringedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: cringes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: cringeth
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: cringe
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: cringing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cringed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: crinch
pos: verb
tags: alternative
dialectal
form: cringes
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: more cringe
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most cringe
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
[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.
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.
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, [...]
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.
Perhaps the Daily Mail should be sued for damaging people's health? Across the nation, millions have cringed so hard at its audaciously sexist front page that they've strained their face muscles, or given themselves a migraine from slamming their heads repeatedly against the nearest wall.
gloss: To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: I'm cringing watching this easily Blizzard- or Square Enix-worthy new trailer for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls Online. Not because it's bad — it's a deftly rendered slice of CGI. But it must have cost a fortune. It makes me want to say "Spend the money on knocking the game out of the park, please, not the frippery, Bethesda." But oh what frippery.
gloss: To bow or crouch in servility.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: [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, [...]
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?
Lady, receive a tributary lay / From one who cringeth not to titled state / Conventional, and lacking will to prate / Of comeliness— [...]
Humbly thou cringest that with nod of head / Couldst fling me seaward from they steepest cliffs!
Leclère was bent on the coming of the day when Bâtard [a dog] should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.
He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.
gloss: To act in an obsequious or servile manner.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: Here the beggar accoſts me; had I appeared as himſelf, he had aſked nothing: but now he uncovers, he cringeth, he cries for relief.
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.
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)."
gloss: To draw (a body part) close to the body; also, to distort or wrinkle (the face, etc.).
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: [H]ow thriue you, howe periſh you, and they cringing in their neckes, like rattes, ſmothered in the holde, [...]
Whip him Fellowes, / Till like a Boy you ſee him crindge his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.
gloss: To bow or crouch to (someone) in servility; to escort (someone) in a cringing manner.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
gloss: A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking).
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
gloss: An act or disposition of servile obeisance.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
gloss: A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
dialectal
gloss: Things, particularly online content, which would cause an onlooker to cringe from secondhand embarrassment.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
slang
uncountable
examples: Bro... you just posted cringe
There was so much cringe in that episode!
Soon, there were Instagram compilation accounts dedicated to collecting the worst cringe, with a focus on cringe created by not-quite-random people who were performing, and failing, for thousands of their peers on TikTok.
Los Angeles-based writer K. Allado-McDowell's new novel, Amor Cringe, is a love letter to cringe maximalism.
Many young people are also reevaluating what once constituted cringe, attributing use of the term to unacknowledged bigotry more than just a rejection of sincerity. Some niche communities, such as furries, anime fans, and fetish groups, who were once mocked on social media, have since amassed cultural power that has launched them into the mainstream.
gloss: Synonym of cringeworthy or uncool, inducing awkwardness or secondhand embarrassment.
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
slang
examples: Brands trying to appeal to young people with memes is the most cringe thing ever.
Last week, while giving a commencement speech to New York University graduates, pop star Taylor Swift offered a timely bit of advice: “No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime.”
No matter which side you stand on within a relationship, most people agree that couples participating in baby talk publicly is cringe to say the least.
Instagram may not be on its deathbed, but its transformation from cool to cringe is a sea change in the social-media universe.
We may have to face the fact that the current state of AI art is cringe because we're cringe. Really, we're no better than the unimaginative and self-obsessed people from the history books that commissioned bad portraiture.
It's all kinda cringe, a truly elemental example of pretentious, self-important film-school pap, but whatever, let he who is without cringe throw the first stone.
gloss: Stated in response to something cringeworthy.
pos: intj
tags: derogatory
slang
Related words: crouch
wince
Derived words: cringe comedy
cringe culture
cringefest
cringeful
cringeling
cringelord
cringemaking
cringe-making
cringe-makingly
cringeometer
cringe-o-meter
cringer
cringesome
cringetastic
cringeworthy
cringing
cringingly
cringingness
cringy
cultural cringe
cringe de la cringe
millennial cringe
Translations: