cringe
pronunciation
How to pronounce cringe in British English:
UK [krɪndʒ]
How to pronounce cringe in American English:
US [krɪndʒ]
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- Verb:
- draw back, as with fear or pain
- show submission or fear
Word Origin
- cringe
- cringe: [13] Like crank, cringe appears to come ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic base *krank- whose original meaning was ‘bend’ or ‘curl up’. This produced an Old English verb crincan ‘fall in battle, yield’ (the association of ‘curling up’ and ‘dying’ is obvious), probable ancestor of modern English crinkle [14]. Crincan does not itself seem to be the source of cringe, which until the 16th century was usually spelled crenge or crench; to explain these eforms it is necessary to postulate *crencean, an unrecorded Old English causative derivative of crincan, meaning ‘cause to curl up’.=> crank, crinkle
- cringe (v.)
- early 13c., from causative of Old English cringan "give way, fall (in battle), become bent," from Proto-Germanic *krank- "bend, curl up" (cognates: Old Norse kringr, Dutch kring, German Kring "circle, ring"). Related: Cringed; cringing. As a noun from 1590s.
Example
- 1. There are examples of this cultural cringe in every recent superhero film .
- 2. No one wants to have to cringe when they tell people where they work .
- 3. I tried not to cringe as I heard what he wanted me to do .
- 4. Above all , though , they were written by free men , who did not cringe before the censor , who could call plainly for the abolition of serfdom , say , instead of " the rational allocation of economic forces . " Finally , they were mostly written by herzen , and herzen could really write .
- 5. I feel a little piece of my heart cringe anytime I see her .