▪ I. cripple, n. and a.
(ˈkrɪp(ə)l)
Forms: 1 crypel, 3–4 crupel (-y-), 4 cruppel, crepil, -ul, 4–5 cripel, -il, 4–7 crepel, 5 crypylle, crebull, 5–6 crepell, -ill, -yl(le, 6 crippil, crypple, crepple, -ell, 6–7 creeple, creple, criple, 7 creaple, 7– cripple.
[OE. crypel (known only in Lindisf. Gosp.) = OFris. kreppel, MDu. crȫpel, crēpel, Du. kreupel; MLG. krōpel, krēpel, LG. kröpel; MHG. krüppel, krüpel, MG. 11th c. crupel (from LG.), Ger. kruppel, dial. krippel; ON. kryppill, Norw. krypel; all:—OTeut. *krupilo-, f. krup- ablaut stem of kriupan to creep; either in the sense of one who can only creep, or perhaps rather in that of one who is, in Scottish phrase, ‘cruppen together’, i.e. contracted in body and limbs.]
A. n.
1. a. One who is disabled (either from birth, or by accident or injury) from the use of his limbs; a lame person.
| c 950 Lindisf. Gosp. Luke v. 24 Cuoeð ðæm cryple..aris. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 51/157 Tweie crupeles þat in heore limes al fur-crokede were. c 1374 Chaucer Troylus iv. 1458 It is ful hard to halten unespied Bifor a crepul, for he kan the craft. 1480 Caxton Chron. Eng. cci. 182 God hath yeuen therto to crepels hir goyng and to croked hir hondes. 1586 A. Day Eng. Secretary ii. (1625) 22 Of ancient time it hath often been said, that it is ill halting before a Creple. 1611 Bible Acts xiv. 8 A creeple from his mothers wombe. 1684 Bunyan Pilgr. ii. Introd. 229 These strings..will such Musick make, They'l make a Cripple dance. 1747 Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) 93 One who was quite a Cripple, having no strength left either in his Leg, Thigh, or Loins. 1865 Trollope Belton Est. xiii. 142 A poor cripple, unable to walk beyond the limits of her own garden. |
b. A cattle disease. Also in pl. dial. and Austral.
| 1897 Penrith Obs. 7 Dec. (E.D.D.), Ass t'coo doctor what ails a coo when it'll eat a body's kytle, er owt else but gerse—that's cripple. 1929 Times 1 July 15/6 Lack of minerals in pastures causes innumerable diseases, such as..‘cripples’..in Australia. |
2. techn. a. = cripple-gap (see 5), where app. cripple = ‘creeping’. b. A temporary staging used in cleaning or painting windows: cf. cradle n.
| 1648 A. Eyre Diary (Surtees) 106 He opened a cripple and putt his sheepe on to the New field. 1887 Even. News 11 May 3/6 The jury..recommended the use of ladders, or of the recognised machine known as a ‘cripple’. |
3. U.S. (local.) a. A dense thicket in swampy or low-lying ground. b. A lumberman's term for a rocky shallow in a stream.
| 1675 New Jersey Archives (1880) I. 115 The great Swamp or Cripple which backs the said two Necks of land. 1705 in Corr. Penn. & Logan I. 234 About 300 acres, 100 upland, the rest swamp and cripple that high tides flow over. 1832 J. F. Watson Tales Olden Time 57 Through that cripple browsed the deer. 1942 Sat. Even. Post 5 Sept. 11/1 When they came to the cripple he sloshed straight through. |
4. slang. A sixpence. Cf. bender 6.
| 1785 Grose Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Cripple, six pence, that piece being commonly much bent and distorted. 1885 Househ. Words 20 June 155 (Farmer) The sixpence..is called a bandy, a ‘bender’, a cripple. |
5. Comb., as cripple-lame adj.; cripple-gap, -hole (dial.), see quot. and cf. 2 a; cripple-stopper (colloq.), a small gun for killing wounded birds in wild-fowl shooting.
| 1595 Markham Sir R. Grinvile lix, Dismembred bodies perish cripple-lame. 1847–78 Halliwell, Cripple-gap, a hole left in walls for sheep to pass through. North. Also called a cripple-hole. 1881 Greener Gun 553 Armed with a big shoulder-gun and a ‘cripple-stopper’. 1886 Pall Mall G. 24 Aug. 4/2 The Crane gun..being used with ball and slugs for..cripple-stopping. |
B. adj. Disabled from the use of one's limbs; lame. Obs. or dial., exc. in attrib. use of prec.
| c 1230 Hali Meid. 33 Beo he cangun oðer crupel. a 1300 Cursor M. 22829 (Gött.) Ani man..crepil or croked. 1535 Coverdale Matt. xviii. 8 It is better for y⊇ to entre in vnto life lame or crepell. 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iv. Prol. 20 And chide the creeple tardy-gated Night, Who..doth limpe So tediously away. a 1649 Drummond of Hawthornden Poems Wks. (1711) 56 That criple folk walk not upright. c 1860 Whittier Hill-top viii, My poor sick wife, and cripple boy. |
▪ II. cripple, v.
(ˈkrɪp(ə)l)
[f. cripple n. Cf. Ger. krüppeln, trans. and intr. in senses 1 and 3.]
1. trans. To deprive (wholly or partly) of the use of one's limbs; to lame, disable, make a cripple of.
| a 1300 [see crippled]. 1607 Shakes. Timon iv. i. 24 Thou cold Sciatica, Cripple our Senators, that their limbes may halt As lamely as their Manners! 1791 Huddesford Salmag. (1793) 119 Falling in his drunken fits, Crippled his Nose. 1859 Kingsley Misc. (1860) II. 326 Sailors..crippled by scurvy or Tropic fevers. |
2. transf. and fig. To disable, impair: a. the action or effectiveness of material objects, mechanical contrivances, etc.
| 1694 Smith & Walford Acc. Sev. Late Voy. i. (1711) 75 The Grass and Trees are much weather-beaten, worn away, and crippled. 1725 W. Halfpenny Sound Building 22 So, that the Mason..shall twin their Arches thereon without crippling them. 1805 Nelson in Nicolas Disp. VII. 153 note, The lower masts, yards and bowsprit all crippled. 1871 Macduff Mem. of Patmos xviii. 247 No sickness..crippling the warrior on the very eve of conquest. |
b. a person in his resources, means, efforts, etc., or immaterial things, as trade, schemes, strength, operations, etc.
| 1702 C. Mather Magn. Chr. iii. iii. Introd. (1852) 531 To creeple all the learned, godly, painful ministers of the nation. 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 173 ¶1 The mind..is crippled..by perpetual application to the same set of ideas. a 1809 J. Palmer Like Master Like Man (1811) ii. 56 He was..crippled of present means. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. iv. 289 The nobility, crippled by the wars of the Roses. 1880 L. Oliphant Land of Gilead x. 304 The trade..is crippled by the difficulty of transport. |
3. intr. To move or walk lamely; to hobble. (Now chiefly Sc.)
| c 1220 Bestiary 130 He crepeð cripelande forth. a 1455 Holland Houlate 956 He crepillit, he crengit, he carfully cryd. 1649 G. Daniel Trinarch., Rich. II, cclxxix, The King (who creepled till he came before This Shrine) walkes vpright now. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth viii, Her discomfited master..was crippling towards him, his clothes much soiled with his fall. 1878 W. C. Smith Hilda (1879) 239 The wounded..cripple through the street. |