crisp

adj

Etymology: The adjective is derived partly from the following: * Etymology 1, adjective sense 1: Middle English crisp (“curly, wavy”), from Old English crisp (“curly”), from Latin crispus (“of hair: crimped, curly”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kris-, from *(s)ker- (“to bend; to turn”). * Etymology 1, adjective sense 2: from the above, and probably also onomatopoeic, representing a crinkling or crunching sound. Doublet of crape and crepe. Adjective etymology 1, adjective sense 2.2.3 (“of air, weather, etc.: cool and dry”) is transferred from a description of frost or snow as “crisp”, that is, crunchy. The noun is derived partly from the following: * Middle English crisp (“light, crinkled fabric; kind of pastry; crinkliness or roughness of skin”), from crisp (adjective) (see above). * Modern English crisp (adjective) (“having a consistency which is hard yet brittle”).

1. Senses relating to curliness.

   “crisp hair”

   “A certeyn lightning on his headtop gliſtered harmeleſſe. / His criſp locks frizeling, his temples prettelye ſtroaking.”

2. Senses relating to curliness.

   “[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 hollovv banke, / Bloud-ſtained vvith theſe valiant combatants, […]”

   “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 command.”

3. Senses relating to curliness.

   “Feathered VVater Moſs. Branched. Leaves criſp, feathered, undulated, pointing tvvo vvays.”

4. Senses relating to curliness.

   “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, / VVhereon Hyperions quickning fire doth ſhine: […]”

5. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “The crisp snow crunched underfoot.”

   “Our customers in the produce department expect crisp apples and firm bananas.”

6. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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 last ninety years.”

   “A crisp fresh odour of starch wafted from the cardboard-stiff jacket which covered a well-built, Sunday athlete's frame.”

7. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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; […]”

8. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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.”

9. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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.”

10. Senses relating to brittleness.

    “This new television set has a very crisp image.”

11. Senses relating to brittleness.
12. Senses relating to brittleness.

name

1. A surname.
2. A place in the United States:
3. A place in the United States:
4. A place in the United States:

noun

Etymology: The adjective is derived partly from the following: * Etymology 1, adjective sense 1: Middle English crisp (“curly, wavy”), from Old English crisp (“curly”), from Latin crispus (“of hair: crimped, curly”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kris-, from *(s)ker- (“to bend; to turn”). * Etymology 1, adjective sense 2: from the above, and probably also onomatopoeic, representing a crinkling or crunching sound. Doublet of crape and crepe. Adjective etymology 1, adjective sense 2.2.3 (“of air, weather, etc.: cool and dry”) is transferred from a description of frost or snow as “crisp”, that is, crunchy. The noun is derived partly from the following: * Middle English crisp (“light, crinkled fabric; kind of pastry; crinkliness or roughness of skin”), from crisp (adjective) (see above). * Modern English crisp (adjective) (“having a consistency which is hard yet brittle”).

1. Senses relating to something brittle.

   “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.”

2. Senses relating to something brittle.

   “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 after crisps!)”

3. Senses relating to something brittle.
4. Senses relating to something brittle.
5. Senses relating to something brittle.

   “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 a bit, but literally roasted to a crisp!”

6. Senses relating to something brittle.

   “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 the Criſpe of my Countenance.—They are all for Griſtle.”

7. Senses relating to something curled.

   “They are proud, and vveare their hayre pretty long, and about their criſpes vvreath a valuable Shaſh or Tulipant; […]”

8. Senses relating to something curled.

   “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, […]”

verb

Etymology: Partly 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).

1. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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.”

2. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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.”

3. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “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.”

4. Senses relating to brittleness.

   “[…] 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.”

5. Senses relating to curliness.

   “[…] 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:”

6. Senses relating to curliness.

   “[…] 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;”

7. Senses relating to curliness.

   “[…] 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, the horrible rictus of the mouth, the distortion of the lower jaw, the crisping of the nose, twinkling of the eyes, or sphaerical convexity of the cheeks, with the tremulous succussion of the whole human body:”

   “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.”

8. Senses relating to curliness.
9. Senses relating to curliness.

   “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 of garden Endiue, […]”

   “[…] a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal”

10. Senses relating to curliness.

    “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 sliding ship hath plowed vp the crisping waues of the Sea at ease.”

    “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:”

11. Senses relating to curliness.

    “[…] she gave no sign of the wave of repugnance that swept over her except that her fingers suddenly crisped.”