cramble

plural crambles

1. plural normallyA branch that has been broken and blown onto the ground by the wind.

   These were not your ordinary crambles Boughs and branches broken by the wind.

   1996, Arthur Smith, “Ordinary Crambles”, in Orders of Affection: Poems, page 60

   2 more examples

   After the wind-tempest, when branches lie in crambles upon the clearings and neighbors at far distances phone down the foothills under the mountains to ask if all is well still, the answer is “Yes”

   1989, Lewis Turco, The Shifting Web: New and Selected Poems, page 136

   I shoved into the bottom of the brush pile two large grocery bags holding chainsaw chaff well-soaked in old gasoline gone sticky— a kind of homemade napalm, except, of course, without victims, other than boughs, stumps, broken boards, vines, crambles.

   2006, “Burning the Brush Pile”, in The New Yorker, volume 82, page 56

present singular third person crambles · participle present crambling · participle past crambled · past crambled

1. To break apart.

   A sense of direction, a sense of leadership to give shape to an inertia which crambles in the face of a crises.

   1988, Benazir Bhutto, The Way Out: Interviews, Impressions, Statements, and Messages, page 22

   2 more examples

   Remove this, and the foundation is gone, the superstructure will soon totter, and in less time than was consumed in erecting, will the building cramble to atoms.

   1878, W. M. French, P. G. Rep., “Miscellaneous”, in Odd Fellow's Talisman and Literary Journal, volume 11, page 578

   Usually she crambles the sand particles with her mandibles and fore legs and sweeps it out backwards through the underside of her abdomen.

   1958, Fukui Daigaku. Kyōikugakubu, Memoirs: Natural science, page 30

2. To twist and wind irregularly.

   I could not bear the way they walked and talked, so crambling and material and mealy-mouthed.

   1972, D. H. Lawrence an Italy, page 146

   3 more examples

   The yellow Fumitorie hath many crambling threddie rootes, ſomewhat thicke, groſſe, and fat, like thoſe of Aſparagus: from which riſe diuers vpright ſtalkes a cubite high, diuiding themſelues towarde the top into other ſmaller branches, whereon are confuſedly placed leaues like thoſe of Thalictrum or Engliſh Rubarbe, but leſſer and thinner: […]

   1597, John Gerarde [i.e., John Gerard], The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. […], London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant, for Bonham and Iohn Norton, →OCLC, book II, page 929

   Juliet, crambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to “tidy herself.”

   1901, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton: My novel, page 240

   A baby, for instance, however adventurous, does not cramble, I feel sure; nor does ivy, which, as Gerarde puts it, “as it were with armes, creepeth and wandereth far about." Stouthearted Rocket, however, must cramble for its life through chalky, gravelly or stony soil of barren hills, each sturdy rootlet forcing itself along like a burrowing mole.

   1918, Poet Lore, volume XXIX, page 575

3. To move unsteadily or with difficulty; to hobble.

   At cockcrow she crambles up " My Master, my customers have refused to pay me."

   1979, Aṅụ - Volume 1, page 22

   3 more examples

   This way is very uncertain; for the Horse finding himself cramp'd, will only draw his Legs after him, and shuffle, unless he be forc'd; and besides, if the Lists are drawn too strait, when they are taken off ; the Sinews will be so numbed, that he will be only capable of crambling and cringing; and moreover it will greatly subject him to the String-halt, and often twitching up his Legs.

   1687, The Jockey's Guide, and Farrier's Companion, page 34

   And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks, Those two, who cramble on the adjacent rocks, Their faithless hold no longer can retain, They sink o'erwhelm'd! and never rise again!

   1861, William Falconer, “The Shipwreck: Canto III”, in Maria Mary Marinack, editor, Selections from the Works of the British Classical Poets, page 464

   People now who are in this house who have seen them at Macclesfield say they seem lame with their march and cramble much.

   1893, “The Manuscripts of Sir William Fitzherbert, Bart., of Tissington, Co. Derby”, in Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, page 164