crimp

1. obsoleteEasily crumbled; friable; brittle.

   Now the Fowler […] Treads the crimp Earth,

   1708, John Philips, Cyder. A Poem, page 27

2. obsoleteWeak; inconsistent; contradictory.

   The evidence is crimp; the witnesses swear backward and forward, and contradict themselves

   1750, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

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. plural normallyHair that is shaped so it bends back and forth in many short kinks.
4. obsoleteA card game.

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

   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

5. climbingA small hold with little surface area.
6. climbingA grip on such a hold.

present singular third person crimps · participle present crimping · participle past crimped · past crimped

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

   Cornish pasties are crimped during preparation.

   1 more example

   Casino employees and Gaming Control Board agents placed the table under observation. The deck in play was exchanged for a new deck, and the used deck was found to contain many crimped cards.

   1983, The Pacific Reporter, page 636

2. businessTo 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. climbingto hold using a crimp

plural crimps

1. An agent who procures seamen, soldiers, etc., especially by decoying, entrapping, impressing, or seducing them.

   I hear there are plenty of good men stowed away by the crimps at different places.

   1842, Frederick Marryat, Percival Keene, page 215

   5 more examples

   Indeed, when a maſter of a ſhip, ſuppoſe at Jamaica, hath loſt any of his hands, he applies of courſe to a crimp[…]who makes it his buſineſs to ſeduce the men belonging to ſome other ſhip,

   1758, John Blake, A Plan, for regulating the Marine System of Great Britain, page 44

   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.

   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

   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.

   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

   Jack and Metsy at Portsmouth, fitting out the vessel, and offering three guineas ahead to the crimps for every good able seaman

   1836, Frederick Marryat, Mr Midshipman Easy, page 350

   As Count Antoine was in the habit of sallying forth at night[…]he came near being carried off by a gang of crimps

   1840, Washington Irving, “The Count Van Horn”, in The Knickerbocker, page 243

2. specificallylawOne 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. obsoleteA keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.

present singular third person crimps · participle present crimping · participle past crimped · past crimped

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

   […]nay, where in any corner he can spy a tall man, clutching at him, to crimp him or impress him.

   1831 March, Thomas Carlyle, “Historic Survey of German Poetry By W. Taylor”, in The Edinburgh Review, volume 53, page 168

   5 more examples

   To the Reverend Fathers, it seemed that Denis would make an excellent Jesuit; wherefore they set about coaxing and courting, with intent to crimp him.

   1833 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Mémoires, Correspondance, et Ouvrage inédit de Diderot”, in The Foreign Quarterly Review, page 269

   It appears that that officer, instead of attending to interesting events likely to occur in this quarter, is desirous of plundering corn and crimping recruits

   1837, Arthur Wellesley, edited by John Gurwood, The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington during his Various Campaigns, volume 9, pages 235-6

   —why not create customers in the Queen's dominions for our own manufacturing produce, instead of trying at enormous expense to crimp them in other countries?

   1839 February 11, The Standard, London, page 4

   Voltaire is never so good as when he is ridiculing the cruel folly which crimps a number of ignorant and innocent peasants, dresses them up in uniform, teaches them to march and wheel, and sends them off to kill and be killed.

   1867, Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen, page 235

   On this the Egyptian Government crimped negroes in the streets of Cairo, appointed the most notorious ex-slave-dealer in the Soudan to command them, converted policemen into soldiers, and announced that these negroes and policemen were to be sent to the Soudan

   1884 February 1, Henry Labouchere, “Scuttling out of Egypt”, in The Pall Mall Budget, page 7

   Synonyms: shanghai