/kɹɪsp/
OriginPartly from the following:
* Etymology 2 sense 1: crisp (adjective; see etymology 1).
* Etymology 2 sense 2: Late Middle English crispen (“to curl; of hair: to be curly”), from Old English cirpsian (“to curl, crisp”), from Latin crīspō (“to crimp; to curl”), from crispus (“of hair: crimped, curly”, adjective) (see etymology 1) + -ō (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).
- datedOf hair: curling, especially in tight, stiff curls or ringlets; also (obsolete), of a person: having hair curled in this manner.
“crisp hair”
“A certeyn lightning on his headtop gliſtered harmeleſſe. / His criſp locks frizeling, his temples prettelye ſtroaking.”
“Bulls are more Criſpe vpon the Fore-head than Covves; […]”
- archaic, obsoleteOf a body of water, skin, etc.: having a surface which is rippled or wrinkled.
“[T]hree times did they drinke / Vpon agreement of ſvvift Seuerns floud, / VVho then affrighted vvith their bloudie lookes, / Ran fearefully among the trembling reedes, / And hid his criſpe-head in the”
“You Nimphs cald Nayades of yͤ vvindring brooks, / VVith your ſedg'd crovvnes, and euer-harmleſſe lookes, / Leaue your criſpe channels, and on this greene-Lane / Anſvvere your ſummons, Iuno do's comman”
“The elder ladies' wrinkles curled much crisper / As they beheld; […]”
- archaicSynonym of crispate (“of a leaf: having curled, notched, or wavy edges”); crisped.
“Feathered VVater Moſs. Branched. Leaves criſp, feathered, undulated, pointing tvvo vvays.”
- obsoleteClear; also, shining, or smooth.
“One whyle hée at my necke dooth ſnatch / Another whyle my cléere criſp legges be ſtriueth for too catch, / Or trippes at mée: and euerywhere the vauntage he dooth watch.”
“Common Mother [Nature] […] vvhoſe ſelfeſame Mettle […] Engenders the blacke Toad, and Adder blevv, / The gilded Nevvt, and eyeleſſe venom'd VVorme, / VVith all th'abhorred Births belovv Criſpe Heauen,”
“[…] Fryer, you muſt leave / Your neat criſpe Clarret, and fall to your Syder / Avvhile; […]”
- Having a consistency which is hard yet brittle, and in a condition to break with a sharp fracture; crumbly, friable, short.
“The crisp snow crunched underfoot.”
“Our customers in the produce department expect crisp apples and firm bananas.”
“I Craſſhe [crush] as a thynge dothe that is cryſpe or britell bytwene ones tethe: le creſpe, prime cõiuga.”
- figurativelyNot limp; firm, stiff; not stale or wilted; fresh; also, effervescent, lively.
“And this piece of laurel is from Vaucluse! […] What an exquisite dry old, vital, young-looking, everlasting twig it is! It has been plucked nine months, and looks as hale and as crisp as if it would l”
“A crisp fresh odour of starch wafted from the cardboard-stiff jacket which covered a well-built, Sunday athlete's frame.”
- figurativelyOf action, movement, a person's manner, etc.: precise and quick; brisk.
“An expert, given a certain query, will often come up with a crisp answer: “yes” or “no”.”
“A very estimable young person, Miss Sturch […] such a well-regulated mind, and such a crisp touch on the piano; […]”
“I hoped, of course, that he would make it crisp and remove himself at an early date, for when the moment came for the balloon to go up I didn't want to be hampered by an audience. When you're pushing ”
- figurativelyOf air, weather, etc.: cool and dry; also, of a period of time: characterized by such weather.
“All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!”
“In the long summer the climate much resembles that of Sindh; there are the same fiery suns playing upon the naked surface with a painful dazzle, cool crisp nights, and clouds of dust.”
- figurativelyOf fabric, paper, etc.: clean and uncreased.
“He sat in a small room with benches where Santino had placed him, handed him the crisp, freshly withdrawn fifty-dollar bills, while Santino set about getting a bail bondsman.”
- figurativelyOf something heard or seen: clearly defined; clean, neat, sharp.
“This new television set has a very crisp image.”
- figurativelyNot using fuzzy logic; based on a binary distinction between true and false.
- figurativelyOf wine: having a refreshing amount of acidity; having less acidity than green wine, but more than a flabby one.
- Ireland, UK, in-pluralIn full potato crisp: a thin slice of potato which has been deep-fried until it is brittle and crispy, and eaten when cool; they are typically packaged and sold as a snack.
“Edward, give me another of those delicious olives. / What's that? Potato crisps? No, I can't endure them.”
“I was buying some crisps and pop when there was a noisy clatter on the bare floorboards and something hit my right heel. It was a white cue ball.”
“Turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet”
- Ireland, UK, broadly, in-pluralSometimes with a descriptive word: a crispy, savoury snack made of some other ingredient(s) (such as cornmeal or a vegetable) which is baked or deep-fried and eaten like a potato crisp.
“kale crisps prawn crisp”
“When she’s not writing, Katie spends her time with her husband and two kids, and their dogs: Wotsit, the King Charles spaniel, and Skips, the three-legged rescue dog. (And yes, they are both named aft”
- Canada, USA type of baked dessert consisting of fruit topped with a crumbly mixture made with fat, flour, and sugar; a crumble.
- dated, slangA banknote; also, a number of banknotes collectively.
- also, figurativelyChiefly in to a crisp: a food item that has been overcooked, or a thing which has been burned, to the point of becoming charred or dried out.
“He bears my name—Glendinning. I will disown it; were it like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it shriveled to a crisp!”
“And, oh, to think she should meet such a death at last!—a sitting over the red-hot stove at three o'clock in the morning and went to sleep and fell on it and was actually roasted! Not just frizzled up”
- dialectalThe crispy rind of roast pork; crackling.
“Alon[zo]. Anon they’l cut off ſlivers from us, as they did from the vvhole Ox, in St. James’s Fair. / Gonz[alo]. Oh, ’tis intollerable: methinks I hear a great ſhe Devil, call for [a] Groats vvorth of”
- obsoleteA curly lock of hair, especially one which is tightly curled.
“They are proud, and vveare their hayre pretty long, and about their criſpes vvreath a valuable Shaſh or Tulipant; […]”
- obsoleteA delicate fabric, possibly resembling crepe, especially used by women for veils or other head coverings in the past; also, a head covering made of this fabric.
“Vpon her head a ſiluer criſp ſhe pind, / Looſe vvauing on her ſhoulders vvith the vvind.”
“[T]he nevv deuiſed names of Stuffes and Colours, Crispe, Tamet, Pluſh, Tabine, Caffa, […]”
- transitiveTo make (something) firm yet brittle; specifically (cooking), to give (food) a crispy surface through frying, grilling, or roasting.
“to crisp bacon by frying it”
“c. 1752, Elizabeth Moxon, English Housewifry, Leeds: James Lister, “To make Hare Soop,” p. 6,
[…] put it into a Dish, with a little stew’d Spinage, crisp’d Bread, and a few forc’d-meat Balls.”
“Eliza was fretful at his absences, and brought him his dinner crisped and dried from its long heating in the oven.”
- dated, figuratively, transitiveTo add small amounts of colour to (something); to tinge, to tint.
“It was the form of a man of middle age, the hair white, but the beard only crisped with grey,”
“[…] Monte Pellegrino, a huge, inordinate mass of pinkish rock, hardly crisped with the faintest vegetation, looming up to heaven from the sea.”
“The leaves of the chestnut were crisped with gold.”
- intransitiveTo become firm yet brittle; specifically (cooking), of food: to form a crispy surface through frying, grilling, or roasting.
“to put celery into ice water to crisp”
“[…] the air chilled at sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk, a hoar frost was insidiously stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud.”
“The dew is dried that drenched our hide / Or washed about our way; / And where we drank, the puddled bank / Is crisping into clay.”
- dated, intransitiveTo make a sharp crackling or crunching sound.
“[…] everything had become so still that the crisping of the snow under foot might be heard nearly half a verst round.”
“[…] the wheels [of the carriage] made their little crisping over the fine metal of the driveway.”
“1915, Clotilde Graves (as Richard Dehan), “A Dish of Macaroni” in Off Sandy Hook, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, p. 39,
[…] her light footsteps and crisping draperies retreated along the passage,”
- dated, transitiveTo curl (something, such as fabric) into tight, stiff folds or waves; to crimp, to crinkle; specifically, to form (hair) into tight curls or ringlets.
“[…] those crisped snaky golden locks / Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,”
“1609, Douay-Rheims Bible, 2 Chronicles 4.5,
[…] the brimme therof was as it were the brimme of a chalice, or of a crisped lilie:”
“1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses Elizium, London: John Waterson, “The Description of Elizium,” The fift Nimphall, p. 44,
The Louer with the Myrtle Sprayes
Adornes his crisped Tresses:”
- dated, figuratively, transitiveTo cause (a body of water) to undulate irregularly; to ripple.
“[…] the crisped Brooks, / Rowling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold”
“1818, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, London: John Murray, stanza 53, p. 29,
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
Wherein that image shall for ever dwell;”
“[…] when the breeze crisps the pool, you may see the image of the breakers, and a likeness of the foam.”
- dated, figuratively, transitiveTo twist or wrinkle (a body part).
“[…] he consider’d what an infinity of Muscles these laughing Rascals threw into a convulsive motion at the same time; whether we regard the spasms of the Diaphragm and all the muscles of respiration, ”
“Phillotson saw his wife turn and take the note, and the bend of her pretty head as she read it, her lips slightly crisped, to prevent undue expression under fire of so many young eyes.”
“[…] a slow torsion and crisping of all his nerves, beginning at his ankles, spread to every corner of his body till he had to shut his fists and teeth against the blind impulse to leap from his bed sc”
- UK, dated, dialectal, transitiveTo fold (newly woven cloth).
- dated, intransitiveTo become curled into tight, stiff folds or waves.
“The Sauoie Lettuce hath very large leaues ſpread vpon the grounde, at the firſt comming vp broade, cut, or gaſht about the edges, criſping or curling lightly this or that way, not vnlike to the leaues”
“[…] a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal”
- dated, figuratively, intransitiveOf a body of water: to ripple, to undulate.
“1630, Henry Hawkins (translator), Certaine selected epistles of S. Hierome, Saint-Omer: The English College Press, “The Epitaphe of S. Paula,” p. 96,
Hitherto we haue sayled with a fore-wind, & our sl”
“1832, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters,” Choric Song, V., in Poems, London: Moxon, p. 114,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray:”
“[…] the quick yielding of the waves that crisp and curl and ripple about my body.”
- dated, figuratively, intransitiveOf a body part: to become twisted or wrinkled.
“[…] she gave no sign of the wave of repugnance that swept over her except that her fingers suddenly crisped.”
- A surname.
- An unincorporated community in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.
- An unincorporated community in Ellis County, Texas, named after Charles F. Crisp.
- An unincorporated community in Pleasants County, West Virginia, possibly a ghost town now.
Formscrisper(comparative) · crispest(superlative) · crisps(plural) · crisps(present, singular, third-person) · crisping(participle, present) · crisped(participle, past) · crisped(past) · Chrisp(alternative)