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Cramp   Listen
adjective
Cramp  adj.  Knotty; difficult. (R.) "Care being taken not to add any of the cramp reasons for this opinion."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cramp" Quotes from Famous Books



... hurried out of the room, but the door once closed, her manner changed. One might have supposed a sudden cramp had seized her, from her distorted face, and twitching and panting, and beating the air with her clinched fists, and her quivering lips uttering ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... he had buried it with a demand for "milk, milk, thank ma'am, please." "I don't think he wants you to know what he have been having happen to him, but I can't keep from telling you 'cause I'm tickled clean to my funny bone. Dave Hanks come over here at daylight wanting a doctor quick, and I had a cramp in my leg what I forgot to tie a yarn string around before I went to bed, so I had to let Tom hurry on over there 'count of the push they was in. Then I got to studying it over and while I knewed how Tom had had a lot of practice in such things in ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... splendid banquet in a great house is an admirable thing, provided always its getting up did not cost the entertainer an inward conflict, nor its recollection a twinge of economical regret, nor its bills a cramp of anxiety. A simple evening party in the smallest village is just as admirable in its degree, when the parlor is cheerfully lighted, and the board prettily spread, and the guests are made to feel comfortable without being reminded that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... will feed them,' said Scott; 'thrice a day we will feed them'; and he bowed his back to the milking, and took a horrible cramp. ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... proverbs it's little we're wishing," the boys mutter low, as they wearily delve; "the neighbor boy says there is elegant fishing—he went after catfish and came home with twelve. We have to stay here doing labors that cramp us, while others are pulling out fish by the pound! They're playing baseball every day on the campus, and down in the grove ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... pony," as they say in Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he did not stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, and that he was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been subject to cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was transcendent. He could cut oranges into such devices as none of us had an idea of. He could make a boat out of anything, from a skewer upwards. He could turn cramp-bones into chessmen; fashion Roman chariots from old court cards; make spoked wheels out of cotton reels, and bird-cages of old wire. But he was greatest of all, perhaps, in the articles of string and straw; with which we ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... not more than a woman, and at last the eyes grew hazy, while every joint ached. There was a horrible cramp in her shoulder, and to lessen it she moved a trifle so that her arm rested on the pillow. That was easier, and while she struggled with her weariness her head followed it, until it sank down close by Alton's shoulder. Then for five minutes she fought with her weakness, and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... feel that I'm not dreaming," confided Eph, almost in a whisper. "Whee! but it's fine to be out on a craft so big that you don't get a cramp in your leg from walking! Say, do you know, Jack," he whispered, "I am almost crazy to see one of this ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... was strong among the poorer class of parishioners. Old stiff-jointed Mr. Tozer, who was still able to earn a little by gardening 'jobs', stopped Mrs. Cramp, the charwoman, on her way home from the Vicarage, where she had been helping Nanny to pack up the day before the departure, and inquired very particularly into Mr. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... hundred and fifty dollars at one time. And yet two hundred and fifty dollars is only ten per cent. of my yearly salary. But if I buy a cigar for ten cents it would be no hardship for me to put a cent in the bank for Bobberts, would it? Not a bit! And if you buy an ice cream soda; it would not cramp our finances to put a cent in the bank for each soda, would it? And yet a cent is ten per cent. of ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler

... which prove, that by common consent it has been tacitly set aside, as inconvenient and impracticable. Such has been the case with all those statutes enacted during turbulent times, in order to limit royal prerogative, and cramp the sovereign in his protection of the public, and his execution of the laws. But above all branches of prerogative, that which is most necessary to be preserved, is the power of imprisonment. Faction and discontent, like diseases, frequently ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... fellowship with his gentle-looking and wealthy daughter, yet her reserve and quietness prevented the fulfilment of their wishes. Weeks and months rolled on; the old house had been repaired and beautified. Mr. Cramp, Sarah's law agent and 'man of business,' advised her to let the house, of which she occupied about as much as a wren could fill of the nest of an eagle; and, strangely enough, finding that the house of her childhood was to let, she took it, removing thither all the furniture which ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... heard so little of the Hidden Hand this past week or so that we are tempted to ask whether it is suffering from writer's cramp. ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various

... most ardent passion, and also at the same time the crushing pain of utter hopelessness. For no man who had appeared before the pure angel-child, lovely Angela, in the way the Chevalier had done, could dream of hope. He attempted to speak, but his tongue seemed to be numbed by cramp. At last, controlling himself with an effort, he stammered with trembling voice, 'Signor Vertua, listen to me. I have not won anything from you—nothing at all. There is my strong box; it is yours,—nay, I must pay you yet more than there is there. I am your debtor. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... with such a dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her sandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean little boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles, and cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... about 'em here, Mas'r Harry," said Tom in a whisper. "We don't know but what there's horrible ones living in these dreadful waters. That there cramp taking me in the leg like that made me feel as if one had got hold of me. I'm a horrible coward, Mas'r ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... any check on the expansive force of mind,—it will ooze out! We ought long ago to have been convinced that the only power allowed to us is the power of direction. If one-half the amount of effort expanded to useless endeavours to cramp and check, had been turned towards this channel, how different would be the results! It is true that it is easier to check than to guide,—to fetter than to restrain; and that to attempt to remove evil by the first-occurring remedy ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... one is just the drawing that nobody but me (never mind grammar) could have made. Nobody! because it means ever so much careful watching of the ways of the leaf, and a lot of work in cramp perspective besides. It is not quite right yet, ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, "My wife's a wanton wee thing," if a few lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The following were made extempore to it; ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... whether passenger or seaman it was impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. We asked him what was amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the stomach, that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice, and had walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and had fallen where ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... wants of the Government, and let the people keep the balance of their property in their own hands, to be used for their own profit. Each State will then support its own government and contribute its due share toward the support of the General Government. There would be no surplus to cramp and lessen the resources of individual wealth and enterprise, and the banks would be left to their ordinary means. Whatever agitations and fluctuations might arise from our unfortunate paper system, they could never be attributed, justly or unjustly, to the action ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... splashed up to them, shouting "A rescue! A rescue! Guests Drown While Host Looks On Smilingly! What's the matter, Ted, you look as if you wanted to turn into a submarine? Got cramp?" ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... run down to see the happy couple. Vida was now looking a good forty, but Clyde was actually looking younger than ever; not a line nor a wrinkle to show how he had grieved for her, and not a sign of writer's cramp from these three picture cards he had sent her in five years. She'd been afraid he'd come back worn to ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... once supposed to be a cure for many diseases. Lord Bacon says that in his time people afflicted with cramp wore bands of green periwinkle tied about their limbs. It had also its supposed moral influences. According to Culpepper the leaves of the flower if eaten by man and wife together would revive between them ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... a system of instruction that may tend to perpetuate mannerism, to cramp originality, and fetter genius, has of late years led to considerable opposition to art-academies generally, whenever more is contemplated by them than the mere school-teaching of the pupil, and the affording him assistance at the outset of his professional ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... is not only the earliest, but perhaps the most characteristic of the whole. Despite the apparently unsuitable forms, it is evident that the writer is striving, without knowing it, at what we call journalism. But fashion and the absence of models cramp and distort his work. Its main features are to be found in the personal and satirical pieces, in the vivid and direct humanity of some touches in the euphuist tract-romances, in the delightful snatches of verse which intersperse ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... to accompany her to the house; she complained of cramp in her limbs and stiffness of the joints. She leaned draggingly upon his ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... the table and leaned back with a sigh. My fingers were so stiff with writers' cramp that I felt as though I should never be able to open my hand again. But I, at least, had had a night's sleep. As for the poor Doctor, he was so weary that he had hardly put the tank back upon the table and dropped ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting

... Todd with much amiability. "'Twas most too bad to cramp him down to his peaceful trade, but he's a most excellent shoemaker at his best, an' he always says it's a trade that gives him time to think an' plan his maneuvers. Over to the Port they always invite him to march Decoration Day, same as the rest, ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett

... position of the two animals in their lifeless state is invariably unlike. The horse lies outstretched, the hoof in a straight line with the knee, the teeth half-closed—a picture of exhaustion and resignation. The mule, on the contrary, has always the limbs drawn up, as if from cramp; the knees are bent, and the hoofs drawn inward towards the body; the head is thrown back, the mouth awry, and the teeth firmly clenched. As they often lie side by side, this difference is striking. Whence it arises, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... Wharton like a toad; Had given the faction many a wound, And libell'd all the junto round; Kept company with men of wit, Who often father'd what he writ: His works were hawk'd in ev'ry street, But seldom rose above a sheet: Of late, indeed, the paper-stamp Did very much his genius cramp; And, since he could not spend his fire, He now intended[4] to retire. Said Harley, "I desire to know From his own mouth, if this be so: Step to the doctor straight, and say, I'd have him dine with ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... he had shot one, and not being able to get it any other way, he stripped off his clothes and swam off for it. This in the month of December was a hazardous undertaking, and so it proved, for the young fellow took the cramp and was drowned. It was a very sad sight, so I am told by those who saw it, the old father walking up and down the beach all night calling for his son by name. In the morning the son was seen through the clear cold water ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... Heavy concern to both purchaser and seller. Tho' made of pig iron yet worthy of note 'tis, 'Tis ready to melt at a half minute's notice.[1] Who bids? Gentle buyer! 'twill turn as thou shapest; 'Twill make a good thumb-screw to torture a Papist; Or else a cramp-iron to stick in the wall Of some church that old women are fearful will fall; Or better, perhaps, (for I'm guessing at random,) A heavy drag-chain for some Lawyer's old Tandem. Will nobody bid? It is cheap, I am sure, Sir— Once, twice,—going, going,—thrice, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... chum of mine got in the water, and was taken with a cramp," Smithy went on hurriedly, his blue eyes sparking with delight; "why, after what you showed me this morning, I believe that as soon as I know a little more about swimming, I could ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... caught sight of Thorogood, and raised an arm in greeting. As he did so a sudden spasm of cramp twisted his face like a mask. He relaxed his grasp of the breaker ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... among the crew. Off goes Georgie to bathe, and Billy sits down on the beach with a loving eye upon him. The water was calm: but the boy with the heedlessness of youth stayed in it nearly an hour: he was seized with cramp and screamed to his comrades. They ran, but they were half a mile from the boat. Billy dashed into the water and came up with Georgie just as he was sinking for the last time; the boy gripped him; but by his great strength he ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... cramp my style any." He had sprung on his horse, ridden beside her, leaned and kissed her before she got any ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... and after a long day of traveling, might I not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went to bed? And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming, might it not nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by cramp? On the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a drowning man would bring no help at night. The fatal accident would explain itself. There was literally but one difficulty in the way—the difficulty which ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... with her to the studio would have been a joy. As a novelist, I bitterly resented all the minute domestic worries, but as a human being I rejoiced in my new relationship. "Can I combine the two activities? Will being a husband and a householder cramp and defeat me as ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... sister fell into the river and the brother, in swimming out to save her, was seized with the cramp and sank before he could reach her. The mother has lived alone ever since, except for her servants. They are very good and faithful. Then, she has her hummers and her pygmies, who are a great deal ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... Friday last, which was Saint Margaret's day, and brought her xijd. for candles: she went by water; Mistres Lee went with her, and Robyn Jackesbite. Jane this night was sore trubbled with a collick and cramp in her belly; she vomyted this Monday more, and every night grew stiff in the sole likewise. A meridie hor. 3 cam Sir George Peckham to me to know the tytle for Norombega in respect of Spayn and Portugall ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... done,' sais I, 'What do you say to another?' 'Well, I don't know,' sais I, 'I should like it, that's a fact; but holdin' of my head crooked up chimbly that way, has a' most broke my neck; I've got the cramp in it like.' ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... arrival, Rebecca began to take a regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall. It was to this effect: "The black porker's killed—weighed x stone—salted the sides—pig's pudding and leg of pork for dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt about putting John Blackmore in gaol—Mr. Pitt at meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)—my lady as usual—the young ladies ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... God and all the powers of grace, you shall not go alone! Off with these lies and make-believes! Off with these prisoner's shackles! They cramp, they stifle me! Freedom! Freedom! This is no priest's work—it calls for ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy

... they carry on their backs. Men with portable stoves too, who always have a cup of tea ready for you for a small coin worth about the twentieth part of a penny. Tiny-footed women toddling awkwardly along, with children—also cramp-footed—toddling awkwardly after them, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and with their poor little arms stuck out at right angles with their bodies, to help them to keep their balance. Even the blind beggars, who go along striking on a bell ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... partly through with ease, but lost his hold in such a manner that his body slipped through so as to pinion his arms and leave him wholly powerless either to drop lower or return—the bend of the hole being such as to cramp his back and neck terribly and prevent him from breathing. He strove desperately, but each effort only wedged him more firmly in the awful vise. Hamilton sprang to his aid and did his utmost to effect ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... bare as far as he could see. Then the cold began creeping, creeping, up his arm; first his wrist, then his arm to the elbow, then his arm to the shoulder; how cold it was! And soon it began to ache. Ugly little cramp-pains streamed up his finger, up his palm, up his arm, till they reached into his shoulder, and down the back of his neck. It seemed hours since the little brother went away. He felt very lonely, and the hurt in his ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... type of trauma which results from fighting corresponds closely with that which causes the most shock in the experimental laboratory. Division of the intestines with a sharp knife causes no pain, but pulling on the mesentery elicits pain. Ligating the stump of the appendix causes sharp, cramp-like pains. Sharp division of the gall-bladder causes no pain, but distention, which is the gall-bladder's most common pathologic state, produces pain. Distention of the intestine causes great pain, but sharp ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... so moderate in drinking that the wine he had taken, supplemented by his misery, made him feel physically ill. He shuddered with cold as he dived into the water, and as he swam out he felt, for the first time in his life, a slight twinge of cramp. At another time he would have been somewhat alarmed, for the strongest swimmer is absolutely helpless under an attack of cramp, but this morning he was indifferent, and the thought struck him that it would be well for him if he ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... Youth, strength, and health, Cramp the soul's endeavour; Drive it down In hell to drown, Hell that ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... that many of Shakespeare's, and several of the celebrated Tragedies of Antiquity, are cast in the same form. I do not therefore dispute against this way of writing Tragedies; but against the Criticism that would establish This as the only method; and by that means would very much cramp the English Tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent to the genius ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... giving attention to the rescued Andy, there occurred with Jack one of those events which people call a cramp. I do not know what to call it, but it is not a cramp. It is a kind of collapse—a sudden exhaustion that may come to the best of swimmers. The heart insists on resting, the consciousness grows dim, the will-power flags, ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... wrestling, and the like, and with an improved system of physical education. It sounds little better than a mockery to speak of deeds of valour and personal prowess, whilst we submit to confine our limbs in garments that cramp the frame and resist every healthy movement of the body. We must not go farther into the question in these pages, but we may ask—were there as many narrow-shouldered, weak-chested, delicate men, in the days when every gentleman knew how to use ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... astronomer, whose opinions are of such weight, considered also 36 degrees as the inclination of a slope quite inaccessible, if the nature of the ground did not admit of forming steps with the foot.) We felt the want of cramp-irons, or sticks shod with iron. Short grass covered the rocks of gneiss, and it was equally impossible to hold by the grass, or to form steps as we might have done in softer ground. This ascent, which was ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... seller; so that it was, as he expresses it, "remissum magis specie, quam vi: quia cum venditor pendere juberetur, in partem pretii emptoribus accrescebat[e]." But this inconvenience attends it on the other hand, that these imposts, if too heavy, are a check and cramp upon trade; and especially when the value of the commodity bears little or no proportion to the quantity of the duty imposed. This in consequence gives rise also to smuggling, which then becomes a ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... burdens across the plain. In all that the water does, the poet's fancy can discern its personality of life. It gives fish to the fisher, and crops to the husbandman; it swells in fury and lays waste the land; it grips the bather with chill and cramp, and holds with inexorable grasp its drowning victim. . . . What ethnography has to teach of that great element of the religion of mankind, the worship of well and lake, brook and river, is simply this—that what is poetry to us was philosophy ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer

... cases, there is an excessive amount of pain, preventing sleep; where this is due to cramp-like contractions of the muscles and movements of the fragments, it is relieved by more accurate fixation, as by strips of plaster; otherwise a hypodermic injection of heroin ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... The pain-reaction had been severe enough to affect his vision; the great hall looked momentarily darker than it should have been. And although the actual pain had ended, the muscles of his arm and shoulder were still trying to cramp ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz

... more irregularly, one part contracting while another is relaxing. This may readily be seen in the muscular action of the intestines, called vermicular motion. It is the irregular and excessive contraction of the muscular walls of the bowels that produces the cramp-like pains ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... excellent fellow, stroke of the Cambridge boat in '12, who would be just the man) the possibility of the frost breaking in time for the inter-county Rugby match at Truxe, the immediate return of his wife from London (he was very fond of his wife), and, lastly, a certain cramp in the stomach that sometimes "bowled him over" and of which the taking of a funeral—"here to-day ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... returned Mrs. Tallboys, "that man has used brute force to cramp woman's intellect and energy so long, that she has learnt to acquiesce in her position, and to abstain from exerting herself, so that it is only where she is partially emancipated, as in my own country, that any idea of her powers can ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... most important of all rules is perfect cleanliness. The best cages are wooden ones with unpainted wires, and the perches should be of different thicknesses, as, if they are all one size, the bird is likely to get cramp in his feet. Once in a week at least the perches and tray should be scrubbed with very hot water with soda in it, but they must be dried thoroughly before they are put back into the cage; therefore if possible it is best to have two sets of perches and to use them alternately. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... I remember an incident which occurred a little before daylight. One of our comrades, who had been lying near me, got up, went out into the street, and paced up and down some time, as if to shake off cramp or cold. My eyes followed him mechanically; he was walking in front of the houses, the backs of which look out upon the Passage des Panoramas, and as he did so he cast furtive glances through the open doorways. He went into one, and came out ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... watching and seeing nothing but black night. Later I'll go down and see what that thing is. If it's a flatboat or a raft, I'll try to get across on that. If it isn't, I'll climb up the bank and get a log. Then I'll try swimming across holding to it. That'll keep me up if I get a cramp. Lord, I'm hungry! Guess I'd better not think about it. I'm talking to myself as though I'd reached my second childhood. Oh, well...." He paused and looked up toward the embankment. "You thought you'd get me, didn't you, ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop

... speak, but a terrible cramp in his throat choked him. He appealed with his hands to Slingerland. The trapper lost his smile and the iron set ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... was only one in the millions coming and going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she cramp her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself upon the greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of influence had opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could all have been hers, as John Appleton and Jim's father had said. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... of debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as according to the superstitious observances of our class. Though we may speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of "Mrs. Grundy" ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... for high lights cut out of it. A fine print of a Holy Family, about 15x18 inches, has a middle tone of fair blue and a shadow tint of full rich green. Copies of two immense woodcuts at the Victoria and Albert Museum, of Biblical subjects, seem to have been seems to cramp the hand and injure the eyes of all but the most gifted draughtsmen. It is desirable to cultivate the ability to seize and record the "map-form" of any object rapidly and correctly. Some practice in elementary colour-printing would certainly be of general usefulness, ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher

... yards, when the Sikh cried out, "I have cramp, sahib! I can swim no longer!" and he let go his hold of ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... a wave of his hand to the garden and the stars—"which I owe to Mary and the little speck on her lungs which brought us here after—after we had found that we had not as much money as we thought we had and an old fellow who had been an idling student, mostly living abroad all his life, felt the cramp of the material facts of board-and-clothes money. It made Mary well. It made me know the fulness of wisdom of the bee and the ant, and it brought me back to the spirit of America—the spirit of youth and accomplishment. Instead of dreaming of past cities, ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... Hubert for the recovery of his son, who was cured by this means. The son also performed the necessary rites at the shrine, and was cured not only of the hydrophobia "but of the worser phrensy with which his father had instilled him." Cramp-rings were also used; and eelskins to this day are tied round the legs as a preventive of this spasmodic affection; and by laying sticks across the floor, on going to bed, cramp has ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... invitations somewhat early, on account of my necessary preparations. I have caused this epistle to be written by my slave Sophotatus in an adjoining chamber, as merely to behold the labor of writing causes cramp in my fingers." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... though not to stop, for I still struck out with my feet, I saw the savages on the margin of the water, fiercely threatening me with their daggers, but not daring to swim off in pursuit. My mind was greatly relieved; but there was the risk of cramp, or giving way from fatigue, as also the still greater danger of being snapped up by a huge shark. My friends, however, knew this as well as I did, and continuing to exert themselves as at first, at length ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... water. But you'll get used to it, if you only stay in a couple of minutes at first, and get accustomed to the chill gradually. But remember the rule: no one is ever to go unless I'm right at hand, and there must always be someone in a boat, ready to help if a girl gets a cramp or any other sort ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart

... Professor Hardwigg did not intend the old woman and myself to become martyrs to his obstinate will. Were we to be starved to death? A frightful recollection came to my mind. Once we had fed on bits and scraps for a week while he sorted some curiosities. It gave me the cramp even to ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... an umpire. Every umpire had fled. They hid behind trees, borrowed silk hats and umbrellas and pretended they were visitors—any device, however mean, to avoid the task of umpiring for that young man. Provided his opponent did not go to sleep or get cramp, one game might last all day. Anyone could return his balls; but, as I have said, to get a ball past him was almost an impossibility. He invariably won; the other man, after an hour or so, would get mad and try to lose. It was his only chance ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... the evidently Roman turn of her nose and of her character had not put divinity out of the question—shake hands with a not very imposing young prince, and bend her regal knees into this curious and sudden little cramp. I saw her, this adventurous maid, some days afterward in a hansom cab (shade of her grandmother, think of it!), directing with her imperious parasol the cabby to this and that shop. It struck me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... idea of any "payment," in that sense, must be utterly and scornfully abjured on the foundation stone of every National or Civic Museum. There must be neither companies to fill their own pockets out of it, nor trustees who can cramp the management, or interfere with the officering, or shorten the supplies of it. Put one man of reputation and sense at its head; give him what staff he asks for, and a fixed annual sum for expenditure—specific accounts ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... The unfortunate cramp, which at her first terror had attacked Mrs. Ulrica's throat, now suddenly disappeared, and she emitted a long and loud scream; but no sooner had this been accomplished, than a large brawny hand was placed roughly over ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen

... day. Gruby says very soon. But doctors are so inconsistent. Last week, after I had had a frightful attack of cramp in the throat and chest, 'Pouvez-vous siffler?' he said. 'Non, pas meme une comedie de M. Scribe,' I replied. So you may see how bad I was. Well, even that, he said, wouldn't hasten the end, and I should go on living indefinitely! I had to caution him not to tell ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... as I trod it down in order to elevate myself as much as I could and so have a wider view around, for it made my limbs feel as if cramp was coming on; but I kicked out vigorously, and the sensation passing off I began to feel more at home in the water, and as confident as if I were bathing off the shore at Beachampton— albeit I was now having a bath in ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... as much as an hour before I could make anyone hear. But Rose thought I might be there, and down she came, and told me to swim ashore. It wasn't far, but the water was horrid cold, and I didn't like it. I started though, just as she said, and got on all right, till about halfway, then cramp or something made me shut up and howl, and she came after me slapdash, and pulled me ashore. Yes, sir, as wet as a turtle, and looked so funny, I laughed, and that cured the cramp. Wasn't I good to mind when ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... McKnight did not appear at all. I sat at my desk and transacted routine business all afternoon, working with feverish energy. Like a man on the verge of a critical illness or a hazardous journey, I cleared up my correspondence, paid bills until I had writer's cramp from signing checks, read over my will, and paid up my life insurance, made to the benefit of an elderly sister of my mother's. I no longer dreaded arrest. After that morning in the station, I felt that anything would be a relief from the tension. I went home with ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... yard, There is a man all to you guard. If you put your hand out so, Untoe the guv'nor you must go; Eight o'clock is our breakfast hour, Those wittles they do soon devour; Oh! dear me, how they eat and stuff, Lave off with less than half enough. Nine o'clock you mount the mill, That you mayn't cramp from settin' still. If that be ever so against your will, You must mount on the traaedin' mill. There is a turnkey that you'll find He is a raskill most unkind. To rob poor prisoners he is that man, To chaaete ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... "malignus" are to be coupled with Eleutheria and Douleia, note that Caliban's torment is always the physical reflection of his own nature—"cramps" and "side stiches that shall pen thy breath up; thou shalt be pinched, as thick as honeycombs:" the whole nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contraction. Fancy this of Ariel! You may fetter him, but you set no mark on him; you may put him to hard work and far journey, but you cannot give ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... a silent one. Jean nearly gave himself cramp in his determined efforts not to touch with his own the knees of Madame Ewans' who dozed on the back seat of the conveyance. She hardly awoke enough to bid him good-bye when he alighted ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... my home surroundings. In a word, being older than my years, I began to think for myself. Under the influence of Mr. Wetherill I had come, as without him I could not have done, to see how much there was of the beautiful and noble in the creed of Fox and Penn, how much, too, there was in it to cramp enterprise, to limit the innocent joys of life, to render progress impossible, and submission to every base man or ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... gods kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... you're a very clever fellow, I know, and I'm very glad to have you with us—but remember I have organized this movement for years, planned it out as I sat toiling in Belcovitch's machine-room, written on it till I've got the cramp, spoken on it till I was hoarse, given evidence before innumerable Commissions. It is I who have stirred up the East-End Jews and sent the echo of their cry into Parliament, and I will not be interfered with. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... sort of restlessness, she made herself coffee and forced some food down her contracted throat. Then she put on her coat, took down Miss Blake's six-shooter and cartridge belt, and saw, with a slight relaxing of the cramp about her heart, that there were four shots in the chamber. Four shots and eight dogs, but—at least—she could save herself from that death! She strapped the gun round her slim hips, filled her pockets with supplies—a ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... wealth do us now? It would be taken from us—had not the Germans already levied an indemnity of four hundred millions upon Philadelphia? And seized the Baldwin locomotive works, the greatest in the world, employing 16,000 men? And the Cramp shipbuilding yards? And the terminus at Point Breeze down the river of the great Standard Oil Company's pipe line with enormous ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... know. I'd be 'feard to say dere ain't nothing in voo-doo. Some puts a dime in de shoe to keep de voo-doo away, and some carries a buckeye in de pocket to keep off cramp and colic. Dey say a bone dey finds in de jawbone of a hog will make chillun teethe easy. When de slaves got sick, de whitefolks looked after 'em. De medicines for sickness was nearly all yerbs. Dey give boneset for colds, made tea out ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... got a cramp in my back, and my neck's gone to sleep!" groaned Old Jimmie, leaning forward on his cane. "Daughter, dear"—plaintively to Maggie—"what is the ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... beach they walked in days that seem to man long, long ago. How brief and strange the little lives of men, and so beset with customs framed to cramp the heart and curse the soul before its time! To me,—here since Time began to build that bridge of sighs and tears that link the two eternities—it seems but yesternight that, hand in hand they wandered here, so wrapt in happiness born ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... are told the Plot should not be so ridiculously contrived, as to crowd several Countries into one Stage. Secondly, to cramp the accidents of many years or days, into the Representation of two hours and a half. And, lastly, a conclusion drawn that the only remaining dispute, is concerning Time; whether it should be contained in twelve or four and twenty hours; ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... Lady! I have the cramp in my toe! Trust not to me, for so God me speed, I will deceive you in ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... once again pursue by passing over all those points of theory which are so dear to Dr. Pym. I know how they are made. Perjury is a variety of aphasia, leading a man to say one thing instead of another. Forgery is a kind of writer's cramp, forcing a man to write his uncle's name instead of his own. Piracy on the high seas is probably a form of sea-sickness. But it is unnecessary for us to inquire into the causes of a fact which we deny. Innocent Smith never did ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... with common-sense who is heartless and has not a shilling in his pockets?' 'Come, come, George,' said Wilks, 'banish melancholy, draw up your drama, and bring your sketch with you to-morrow, for I expect you to dine with me. But as an empty purse may cramp your genius, I desire you to accept my mite; here is twenty guineas.' Farquhar set to work, and brought the plot of his play to Wilks the next day; the later approved the design, and urged him to proceed without delay. Mostly ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar

... signature (even of witnesses) except that of the Notary. The peculiar flourish before the Notary's name is what is called the Tabellionato, a fanciful distinctive monogram which each Notary adopted. Marco's Will is unfortunately written in a very cramp hand with many contractions. The other two Wills (of Marco the Elder and Maffeo) are in beautiful and clear ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... sides for laughter at our attempts to catch these two devilish goats, which to our cost we found were not so feeble, after all; for getting one up in a corner, she raises herself up on her hind legs and brings her skull down with such a smack on my knee that I truly thought she had broke my cramp-bone, whilst t'other, taking Dawson in the ankles with her horns, as he was reaching forward to lay hold of her, lay him sprawling in our little stream of water. Nor do I think we should ever have captured them, but that, giving over our endeavours from sheer fatigue, they of their ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... are being fixed to the ribs, etc., and the three larger ones to hold down the centre rib in the same way by means of fitted wood block 33, and for the corner blocks, when they are fitted properly to the shaped ribs. (Cramp 11 is used in these ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson

... indication of discontent, on the part of laboring men and women, at conditions which cramp or fetter the free utterance of their manhood or womanly glory. In that divine discontent is the hope of the race. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... and heroes round, I call my garret classic ground. For though confined, 't will well contain The ideal flights of Madam Brain. No dungeon's walls, no cell confined Can cramp the energies of mind! Thus, though my heart may seem so small, I've friends, and 't will contain them all; And should it e'er become so cold That these it will no longer hold, No more may Heaven her blessings give, I shall not ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... must, in their action, be free from the disturbance of uncontrolled breath action below them, or the hindrance due to misdirected effort above them. To direct consciousness to the vocal cords is to cramp them and prevent that free vibration and that perfect relaxation of the throat without which pure tone and true pitch ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... head, framed in the darkness beneath the gnarled tree-root, suddenly appeared, and as suddenly vanished. Another half-hour went by, and yet another, but no further sign was given. My companion, unused to such a long vigil, shifted uneasily, and protested that he was tingling with cramp and longing for sleep; presently, unable to endure his discomfort, he arose, and stretched his limbs before settling down again ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... and supersedes, in many cases, all kinds of medicines. It is particularly useful in confined habit of body, as also diarrhoea, bowel complaints, affections of the kidneys and bladder, such as stone or gravel; inflammatory irritation and cramp of the urethra, cramp of the kidneys and bladder, strictures, and hemorrhoids. This really invaluable remedy is employed with the most satisfactory result, not only in bronchial and pulmonary complaints, where irritation and pain are to be removed, but ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various

... right if you don't get cramp," said Avis. "That must be dreadful. Once when we spent our holidays at Whitby we had such an adventure. We were walking along the shore, and we saw a young lady swimming a little distance out. Suddenly she flung ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil



Words linked to "Cramp" :   kink, secure, trismus, clamp, writer's cramp, wrick, hamper, intermittent cramp, twitching, cramp iron, symptom, slip, bound, strangle, graphospasm, muscle spasm, sustain, halter, trammel, rick, throttle, restrict, restrain, crick, affect, vellication, opisthotonos, charley horse, myoclonus, twitch, blepharospasm, limit, fix



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