ppl. a. [f. CRISP v.]
1. Of hair: Closely and stiffly curled.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 188. Þe mane of þat mayn hors … Wel cresped & cemmed.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 53. More blacke of skynne, more crispedde in heire.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 92. Those crisped snakie golden locks.
1637. R. Humfrey, trans. St. Ambrose, I. 137. Cupids yonkers with their crisped, powdred, and perfumed lockes.
1842. Prichard, Nat. Hist. Man, 99. [Hair] sometimes straight and flowing, at others considerably curled and crisped.
2. Having a surface curled into minute waves, folds or puckers.
1603. Dekker, Grissil (Shaks. Soc.), 9. Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
1609. Bible (Douay), 1 Kings vii. 26. The leafe of a crisped lilie.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 87. Having three Auricles or crisped Angles.
1818. Keats, Endym., IV. 95. The wind that now did stir About the crisped oaks full drearily.
1849. Thoreau, Week on Concord, Monday 123. A million crisped waves come forth.
b. Said of a crinkled margin.
1802. Beddoes, Hygëia, VIII. 119. [The liver] has its edges crisped till they bend forwards.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 276. Orobanche rubra … lobes of lip toothed and crisped.
1870. Bentley, Bot., 152–3. When the margin is very irregular, being twisted and curled,… it is said to be crisped or curled.
3. Made crisp or brittle; ‘short’ in texture; also in manner, style, etc.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, II. xx. Hee that reades the Fathers shall finde them as if written with a crisped pen.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 102. Garnish with crisped parsley and fried oysters.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Each & All, ii. 26. Young ash plantations, miles long, with their shoots crisped and black.
¶ 4. Applied to trees: sense uncertain.
1634. Milton, Comus, 984. Along the crisped shades and bowers.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Cerem. Candlemas-Eve. The crisped yew.
