• IPA: /kɹɪmp/

From Middle English crimpen, from Middle Dutch crimpen, crempen ("to crimp"), from Proto-Germanic *krimpaną (compare related Old English ġecrympan).

crimp

1. (obsolete) Easily crumbled; friable; brittle.
2. (obsolete) Weak; inconsistent; contradictory.

crimp (plural crimps)

1. A fastener or a fastening method that secures parts by bending metal around a joint and squeezing it together, often with a tool that adds indentations to capture the parts.

   The strap was held together by a simple metal crimp.

2. The natural curliness of wool fibres.
3. (usually, in the plural) Hair that is shaped so it bends back and forth in many short kinks.
4. (obsolete) A card game.
   • 1632 (first performance), Benjamin Jonson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “The Magnetick Lady: Or, Humors Reconcil'd. A Comedy […]”, in The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The Second Volume. […] (Second Folio), London: […] Richard Meighen, published 1640, →OCLC ↗, Act II, scene iv:

     Lady Loadstone: Laugh, and keep company, at gleek or crimp. / Mistress Polish: Your ladyship says right, crimp sure will cure her.

5. (climbing) A small hold with little surface area.
6. (climbing) A grip on such a hold.

• Russian: обжи́м

crimp (crimps, present participle crimping; simple past and past participle crimped)

1. To press into small ridges or folds, to pleat, to corrugate.

   Cornish pasties are crimped during preparation.

2. (electricity) To fasten by bending metal so that it squeezes around the parts to be fastened.

   He crimped the wire in place.

3. To pinch and hold; to seize.
4. To style hair into a crimp, to form hair into tight curls, to make it kinky.
5. To bend or mold leather into shape.
6. To gash the flesh, e.g. of a raw fish, to make it crisper when cooked.
7. (climbing) to hold using a crimp

• French: sertir
• German: crimpen, falzen, quetschen,
• Italian: crimpare
• Portuguese: crimpar
• Russian: обжима́ть
• Spanish: crimpar, ponchar

• German: wellen

crimp (plural crimps)

1. An agent who procures seamen, soldiers, etc., especially by decoying, entrapping, impressing or seducing them.
   • 1771–1790, Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography [Part 1]”, in John Bigelow, editor, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co., published 1868, →OCLC ↗, page 159 ↗:

     Walking the street very hungry, and not knowing what to do with himself, a crimp's bill was put into his hand, offering immediate entertainment and encouragement to such as would bind themselves to serve in America. He went directly, sign'd the indentures, was put into the ship, and came over, never writing a line to acquaint his friends what was become of him.

   • 1796, J[ohn] G[abriel] Stedman, chapter XVII, in Narrative of a Five Years’ Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the Wild Coast of South America; […], volume II, London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], and J. Edwards, […], →OCLC ↗, page 28 ↗:

     Among his men I recollected one Cordus, a gentleman's ſon from Hamburgh, in which character I had known him, and who had been trepanned into the Weſt India Company's ſervice by the crimps or ſilver-coopers as a common ſoldier.

2. (specifically, legal) One who infringes sub-section 1 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, applied to a person other than the owner, master, etc., who engages seamen without a license from the Board of Trade.
3. (obsolete) A keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.

crimp (crimps, present participle crimping; simple past and past participle crimped)

1. (transitive) To impress (seamen or soldiers); to entrap, to decoy.

   Synonyms: shanghai