Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Cringing |
CringingAdjective1. Shrinking or flinching in fear. 2. Totally submissive. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "cringing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1780. (references) |
Synonyms: CringingSynonyms: cowering(a) (adj), cringing(a) (adj), groveling (adj), grovelling (adj), wormlike (adj), wormy (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Servility | Adjective: servile, obsequious; supple,supple as a glove; soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed; beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical; abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones; base, mean, sneaking; crouching; Verb: |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Cringing |
| English words defined with "cringing": bootlick ♦ Cringingly ♦ Ducker ♦ fawn ♦ Knee-crooking, kotow, kowtow ♦ obsequiousness ♦ servility, subservience, suck up ♦ toady, truckle. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "cringing": Gospel according to ... ♦ Offering. (references) |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | And under the begging, and under the cringing, a hopeless anger began to smolder. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Cringing" is generally used as a lexical verb (-ing form) -- approximately 78.00% of the time. "Cringing" is used about 50 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 78% | 39 | 55,036 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 20% | 10 | 111,207 |
| Noun (singular) | 2% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 50 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "cringing": cringing servility. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| Language | Translations for "cringing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | تذلل (cringe, draggle, droop, drooping, grovel, lick his boots, obsequiousness, subservience), زلة (error, fault, faux pas, frailty, lapse, peccadillo, stumble). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | свиване (compression, constriction, contraction, crouch, flection, flick, inflection, inflexion, retraction, shrink, shrinkage, shrug), раболепие (obsequiousness, servility), подмилкване (cringe, palaver). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | hrbení se. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | matelu (crawling), mateleva (servile). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | craintif, timide (crestfallen), servile. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | kriechend (crawling, creeping, groveling, slow moving, truckling, worming), hündisch (canine, dog like, doggish, fawning, sycophantic). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | félénk (bashful, be shy, be timid, chicken hearted, chicken-hearted, coy, diffident, faint, faint-hearted, farouche, fearful, fearsome, nervous, poor spirited, self-conscious, shamefaced, sheepfaced, sheepish, shy, timid, timorous, tremulous). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | strisciante (creeping, groveling, grovelling, reptant, unctuous), servile (menial, modal, obsequious, servile, slavish). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | た"焼き (octopus dumplings, overwhelmed, recoiling, to falter, to wince). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | たじたじ (overwhelmed, recoiling). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | kercheenagh (abject, cullionly, dependent, down-and-out, impoverished, impoverishing, miserable, rotten, servile, shabby, slavish, truckle, vile, vile morally), croobey (cringe, cringe of action, hump). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ingingcray servilismo (abjection, obsequiousness, servility, subservience, toadyism), adulação (adulation, blarney, cajolement, cajolery, coaxing, fawning, flattery, sawder, sugar, toadyism). (various references) târâtor (crawling, creeping, creepy, decumbent, grovelling, prostrate, reptile), slugarnic (grovelling, hat in hand, obsequious, servile, slavish, slimy, submissive, supple, toad-eating), linguşire (adulation, apple sauce, blandishment, butter, cajolement, cajolery, fawning, flannel, flattering, flattery, slaver, soap, toad-eating), abject (abject, abjectly, low, mean, miserable, nefarious, slavish). (various references) раболепие (kotow, kowtow, servility, subservience). (various references) persona asquerosa (dastard). (various references) servilitet (servility), servil (servile, subservient), krypande (crawl, creep, creeping, creepy, decumbent, grovelling, obsequious, procumbent, servile, sycophantic). (various references) yaltakçı (adulatory, bootlicker, crawler, creep, creeper, greaser, groveler, groveller, lickspittle, obsequious, oily, servile, slime, slimy, smarmy, wheedling), yalaka (adulator, adulatory, arse licker, canine, lackey, lickspittle, smarmy), dalkavuk (adulator, adulatory, apple polisher, bootlicker, brown-nose, bumsucker, creeper, deadhead, flatterer, flunkey, flunky, groveler, groveller, lackey, minion, reptile, silky, soapy, sycophant, toadeating, toady, tufthunter, yes man). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"Cringing" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: carignon, ching-ing, cragging, cringeing, Crinyion, kriging. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "cringing" (pronounced kri"njing) |
| 6 | -r i" n j i ng | infringing. |
| 4 | -n j i ng | arranging, avenging, challenging, changing, exchanging, lounging, lunging, plunging, ranging, rearranging, scavenging, scrounging, shortchanging, unchanging. |
| 3 | -j i ng | acknowledging, aging, alleging, arbitraging, averaging, besieging, bridging, bulging, charging, converging, damaging, discharging, discouraging, disengaging, dislodging, disparaging, diverging, divulging, dodging, dredging, edging, emerging, encouraging, engaging, enlarging, enraging, fledging, foraging, forging, fudging, gauging, gouging, grudging, hedging, hemorrhaging, imaging, indulging, judging, leveraging, lodging, managing, merging, messaging, micromanaging, mischarging, mismanaging, mortgaging, nudging, obliging, outraging, overcharging, packaging, paging, pillaging, pledging, presaging, purging, raging, rampaging, ravaging, recharging, repackaging, resurging, rummaging, salvaging, savaging, splurging, staging, surging, trudging, urging, verging, waging. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-g-g-i-i-n-n-r" | |
-1 letter: girning, ringing. | |
-2 letters: ricing. | |
-3 letters: icing, iring, ricin. | |
-4 letters: girn, grig, grin, ring. | |
-5 letters: cig, gig, gin, inn, rig, rin. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-g-g-i-i-n-n-r" | |
+2 letters: chagrining. | |
+3 letters: chagrinning, configuring, recognising, recognizing. | |
+4 letters: centrifuging, constringing, grecianizing. | |
+5 letters: fingerpicking, glycerinating, interchanging, micromanaging, preganglionic, reconfiguring. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Quotations: Fiction | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Translations: Modern 8. Derivations | 9. Rhymes 10. Anagrams 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
