[-ING2.]
1. That cramps or benumbs.
1718. J. Chamberlayne, Relig. Philos., I. iii. § 11. The Annular Fibres are contracted more narrowly, and after a cramping Manner.
1861. Swinhoe, N. China Camp., 369. Bearing equally well the violent heat of the Pekin summer and the cramping cold of its winter.
2. That cramps, or compresses and narrows.
1788. Trifler, 158, No. XII. Freed from the cramping bonds of slavery.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 30. The cramping influence of purely professional occupation.
1885. Tennyson, Despair, iv. The cramping creeds that had madden’d the peoples.
Hence Crampingly adv., in a way that cramps or restricts free action.
1891. Atkinson, Last of Giant Killers, 189. The prison he was shut up in so closely and crampingly.
