cringe

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“
But Cob did nothing more than cringe--cringe from head to hind-toe, like a worm Then suddenly, startlingly suddenly, with the full stroke, the dreaded pickax blow, of all the ravens, he let drive straight at Cob's clear, shining eye--the left one, with which Cob, with his head twisted, had all along been regarding him.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. intransitive verb To shrink back, as in fear; cower.
  2. intransitive verb To behave in a servile way; fawn.
  3. noun An act or instance of cringing.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • Hence the term "cringe" - you cringe at the use of the tech but you still watch. —  Slashdot
  • It made me laugh, cringe, and even disgusted me a little, but I enjoyed it. —  AustralianIT.com.au | Top Stories
  • What makes the CCHA cringe is the fact one of their top schools, Notre Dame, was the victim of one of those wins. —  USCHO.com News
  • But Cob did nothing more than cringe--cringe from head to hind-toe, like a worm Then suddenly, startlingly suddenly, with the full stroke, the dreaded pickax blow, of all the ravens, he let drive straight at Cob's clear, shining eye--the left one, with which Cob, with his head twisted, had all along been regarding him. —  The Way of the Wild
  • They destroyed the Venom story and I STILL can't get over the emo singing. * cringe* —  Original Signal - Transmitting Digg
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

cringe:   cringed ·  cringing
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English crengen, to bend haughtily, probably ultimately from Old English cringan, to give way.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. = English dial. (North.) crinch, crouch; from Middle English *crinchen, crenchen, crengen (?), twist or bend, from Anglo-Saxon cringan, sometimes crincan (preterit crang, *crane, plural crungon,*cruncon, past participle crungen, *cruncen) (cf. swing, with the assibilated form swinge), fall (in battle), yield, succumb, orig. prob. ‘bend, bow’ (cf. the orig. sense of equivalent succumb). The verb is but scantly recorded in early literature, but it appears to be the ult. source of crinkle, cringle, as well as of crank in all its uses.
  2. from cringe, v.
 

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/krɪndʒ/
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