cringe

Etymology

as a prostitute cringes (sense 1) in terror and remorse before Clement, a Dominican friar, who seeks to help her return to the convent, an episode from Charles Reade’s novel The Cloister and the Hearth (1861).]] The verb is derived from Middle English crengen (“to bend in a haughty manner; to condescend”) [and other forms], from Old English *crenċan, *crenċġan, *crenġan (“to cause to fall or turn”), the causative of crinċġan (“to yield; to cringe; to fall; to die, perish”), from Proto-Germanic *krangijaną (“to cause to fall; to cause to turn”), from Proto-Germanic *kringaną, *krinkaną (“to fall; to turn; to yield”) (from Proto-Indo-European *grenǵʰ- (“to turn”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives with the sense ‘to cause to do (the action of the verb)’ from strong verbs). The English word is cognate with Danish krænge (“to turn inside out, evert”), Dutch krengen (“to careen, veer”), Scots crenge, creenge, creinge, crienge (“to cringe; to shrug”), Swedish kränga (“to careen; to heel, lurch; to toss”), and West Frisian kringe (“to pinch; to poke; to push; to insist, urge”); and is a doublet of crinkle. The noun and adjective are derived from the verb via zero derivation.

verb

1. (intransitive) To cower, flinch, recoil, shrink, or tense, as in disgust, embarrassment, or fear.
   He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
   Here the angel ceased, and frowning, / Hurled his heavy gauntlet at him; / Hurled, as best he could, the creature, / Cringing as the Serpent cringeth, / Coiled, and with his crest uplifted; / And then prone upon his belly, / Crawled away upon his belly, … 1860, [John B. Newman], “The Combat”, in Wa-Wa-Wanda: A Legend of Old Orange, New York, N.Y.: Rudd & Carleton,[…], →OCLC, page 28
2. (intransitive, figurative) To experience an inward feeling of disgust, embarrassment, or fear; (by extension) to feel very embarrassed.
3. (intransitive) To bow or crouch in servility.
   Lady, receive a tributary lay / From one who cringeth not to titled state / Conventional, and lacking will to prate / Of comeliness— … 1846, Thomas Cooper, “To the Countess of Blessington”, in The Baron’s Yule Feast: A Christmas-rhyme, London: Jeremiah How,[…], →OCLC
   Humbly thou cringest that with nod of head / Couldst fling me seaward from they steepest cliffs! 1891, Edgar Fawcett, “How a Queen Loved”, in Songs of Doubt and Dream: (Poems), New York, N.Y., Toronto, Ont.: Funk & Wagnalls, →OCLC, stanza I, page 155
4. (intransitive, figurative) To act in an obsequious or servile manner.
   Here the beggar accoſts me; had I appeared as himſelf, he had aſked nothing: but now he uncovers, he cringeth, he cries for relief. 1782, John Brown, “The Christian Journal of a Summer-day”, in The Christian Journal; or, Common Incidents, Spiritual Instructors.[…], 4th edition, Edinburgh: […] Gavin Alston; [s]old by William Coke,[…], →OCLC, page 119
   Even to the present day the Arabs consider treating a Hutaymi as unmanly as to strike a woman. When a Felláh says to another, "Tat'hattim" (= Tat'maskin, or Tat'zallí), he means, "Thou cringest, thou makest thyself contemptible (as a Hutaymi)." 23 June 1880, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Ethnology of Modern Midian”, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom, volume XII (Second Series), London: John Murray,[…]; Trübner and Co.,[…], published 1882, →OCLC, part I (Notices of the Tribes of Midian, …), page 286
5. (transitive, obsolete) To draw (a body part) close to the body; also, to distort or wrinkle (the face, etc.).
6. (transitive, obsolete) To bow or crouch to (someone) in servility; to escort (someone) in a cringing manner.

noun

1. (countable) A gesture or posture of cringing (recoiling or shrinking).
   He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
2. (countable, figurative) An act or disposition of servile obeisance.
3. (countable, Britain, dialectal) A crick (“painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body”).
4. (uncountable, slang, sometimes derogatory) Awkwardness, embarrassment, or unexpected earnestness which causes an onlooker to cringe; cringeworthiness.
   There was so much cringe in that episode!
   By the mid 1990s however, this wave of colour and cultural celebration had faded into a puddle of cultural cringe, in which anything remotely Australian was met with disdain and embarrassment. 2018-06-01, Alana Schetzer, “Australiana 2.0: how cultural cringe became cool”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

adj

1. (slang, sometimes derogatory) Inducing awkwardness, embarrassment, or secondhand embarrassment; cringemaking, cringeworthy, cringy.
   They have fallen out of fashion as a content form, with younger users in particular describing gifs as ‘for boomers’ and ‘cringe’. 2022-09-16, Alex Hern, “‘Gifs are cringe’: how Giphy’s multimillion-dollar business fell out of fashion”, in The Guardian, →ISSN