Definitions
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verb
To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear.
Examples
- He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
- [W]hen they were come up to the place where the Lions were, the Boys that went before, were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the Lions, ſo they ſtept back and went behind.
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verb
To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed.
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verb
To bow or crouch in servility.
Examples
- And thou ſly hypocrite, who now wouldſt ſeem / Patron of liberty, who more then thou / Once fawn'd,and cring'd, and ſervilly ador'd / Heav'ns awful Monarch?
- Lady, receive a tributary lay / From one who cringeth not to titled state / Conventional, and lacking will to prate / Of comeliness- [...]
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verb
To act in an obsequious or servile manner.
Examples
- Here the beggar accoſts me; had I appeared as himſelf, he had aſked nothing: but now he uncovers, he cringeth, he cries for relief.
- Their [the clergy's] chief business, during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to domineer.
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verb
To draw (a body part) close to the body; also, to distort or wrinkle (the face, etc.).
Examples
- [H]ow thriue you, howe periſh you, and they cringing in their neckes, like rattes, ſmothered in the holde, [...]
- Whip him Fellowes, / Till like a Boy you ſee him crindge his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.
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verb
To bow or crouch to (someone) in servility; to escort (someone) in a cringing manner.
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noun
A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking).
Example
- He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
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noun
An act or disposition of servile obeisance.
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noun
A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).
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noun
Things, particularly online content, which would cause an onlooker to cringe from secondhand embarrassment.
Examples
- Bro... you just posted cringe
- There was so much cringe in that episode!