cringe
/krɪn(d)ʒ
/verb (cringes, cringing, cringed) [no object]
1Bend one’s head and body in fear or apprehension or in a servile manner: he cringed away from the blow (as adjective cringing) we are surrounded by cringing yes-men and sycophants...
- The boy cringed away but remained defiant, his anger driving the fear out of him.
- He cringed away from Arun, eyes wide, then blinked and appeared to recognize the trapper.
- When I did not, his hands tightened around my mouth and arm until I cringed away in pain.
Synonyms
cower, shrink, draw back, pull back, recoil, start, shy (away), wince, flinch, blench, blanch, dodge, duck, crouch, shudder, shake, tremble, quiver, quail, quake;
get cold feet
kowtow, bow and scrape, grovel, creep, crawl, toady, fawn, truckle, cower;
be servile towards, be sycophantic towards, dance attendance on, ingratiate oneself with, curry favour with;
flatter, woo, pay court to, get round
informal suck up to, make up to, lick someone's boots, be all over, fall all over, sweet-talk, soft-soap
North American brown-nose
archaic blandish
1.1Experience an inward shiver of embarrassment or disgust: I cringed at the fellow’s stupidity...
- I could hear Beth snigger in the background and cringed at how embarrassing this was.
- The session then continued without the interpreter, although inwardly I cringed at how stupid I must have looked.
- Sarah inwardly cringed at the thought of how many people would approach them.
Synonyms
wince, squirm, blush, flush, go red;
feel embarrassed, feel ashamed, feel sheepish, feel mortified, wince with embarrassment
noun
An act of cringing.The chuckle turned into a cringe as I swung a little, due to the movement caused by my laughter....
- Genevan felt a strange cringe in his stomach at the sight of her.
- Pierre gave a small cringe as Marge turned from fixing the table with mild surprise.
Derivatives
cringer
- Runner-up in the list of Christmas cringers was There's No-one Quite Like Grandma by St Winifred's School Choir.
- The carpers and cringers invariably compare Holyrood with Westminster.
- Watching him throw an embarrassingly long fit about the creative direction of the movie and calling a female producer a ‘smart girl ‘is a cringer.’
Origin
Middle English crenge, crenche, related to Old English cringan, crincan 'bend, yield, fall in battle', of Germanic origin and related to Dutch krengen 'heel over' and German krank 'sick', also to crank1.
crank from Old English:
The mechanical crank is found in Old English cranc recorded in crancstæf, a weaver's implement. The primary notion is ‘something bent together’ and it is related to crincan ‘to bend’, probably also the source of cringe (Middle English). Crank (early 17th century) and cranky (late 18th century) meaning an eccentric or bad-tempered person are from a dialect word originally meaning ‘weak, in poor health’.