ppl. a. [f. CRAMP v.]
1. Seized with cramp; suffering from the painful contraction of muscles which characterizes cramp.
1702. Eng. Theophrast., 15. The Limbs of some Indian Penitents, become altogether crampt and motionless for want of use.
1858. Morris, Def. Guenevere, etc. 210.
| And when she slipp’d from off the bed, | |
| Her cramp’d feet would not hold her; she | |
| Sank down and crept on hand and knee, | |
| On the window-sill she laid her head. |
1863. Mrs. Oliphant, Salem Chapel, xx. 347. It was morning when they got out cramped and frozen.
1884. Times, 30 Jan., 9/5. His cramped fingers could scarcely hold the pencil.
2. Forcibly or unnaturally compressed and confined; constrained.
1678. Otway, Friendship in F., 29. Ye make a worse noise then crampt Hedg-hogs.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Bks., Wks. (Bohn), III. 87. The creative power lying coiled and cramped here.
1876. F. E. Trollope, Charming Fellow, III. xiii. 155. The direction was written in … crooked, cramped little characters.
3. Confined, restricted in space, extent, action, etc.
1796. Mad. D’Arblay, Lett., 25 Nov. She would go to Ireland … to see you, were her fortune less miserably cramped.
1853. Marsden, Early Purit., 221. The cramped and narrow mould of a human system.
1884. Law Times’ Rep., LI. 306/2. The space occupied by the schools was cramped and incapable of adequate expansion.
b. fig. Confined or restricted in character; narrow.
1741–2. Richardson, Pamela, Introd. (ed. 2), 38. And squeeze cramp’d pity from the miser’s heart?
1808. Med. Jrnl., XIX. 465. The effects of a cramped medical education.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Ability, Wks. (Bohn), II. 37. In high departments they are cramped and sterile.
1885. Dunckley, in Manch. Weekly Times, 21 Feb., 5/5. It [the Archbishop’s prayer] is cramped and stiff in style.
4. Fastened or secured with a CRAMP (sb.2).
1764. Watson, in Phil. Trans., LIV. 215. From the bottom of the spindle to the first cramped joints.
